SINator Vitter came out swinging yesterday against those of us that want to see our government respect the rule of law and investigate and potentially prosecute those who formulated the Bush Administration's approval of torture against so-called "enemy combatants": (emphasis added)
"Even considering and talking about any possible prosecution of any of these classes of people is absolutely detrimental to our work in this area and will really discourage folks in the intelligence business, or folks who might go into the business on behalf of our country. I think it is turning a political disagreement and debate into criminal prosecutions."
It's absolutely detrimental to consider or talk about prosecuting those who came up with legal fictions to give the Bush Administration a "legal" justification to torture? Those making the case for an investigation and potential prosecutions are taking a political disagreement and making it a crime?
SINator, are you out of your effin mind? You call yourself a Christian? A lawyer?
Second, look at the timeline of the Bush Adminstration's search for a legal justification for torture in this declassified memo from the Senate Intelligence Committee (pdf alert):
March 28, 2002:
Abu Zubaydah is captured.
April, 2002:
In April 2002, attorneys from the CIA's Office of General Counsel began discussions with the Legal Adviser to the National Security Council and OLC concerning the CIA's proposed interrogation plan for Abu Zubaydah and legal restrictions on that interrogation.
May 2002:
According to CIA records, because the CIA believed that Abu Zubaida was withholding imminent threat information during the initial interrogation sessions, attorneys from the CIA's Office of General Counsel met ... to discuss the possible use of alternative interrogation methods that differed from the traditional methods used by the U.S. military and intelligence community. At this meeting, the CIA proposed particular alternative interrogation methods, including waterboarding.
July 17, 2002:
Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) met with the National Security Adviser, who advised that the CIA could proceed with its proposed interrogation of Abu Zubaida. This advice, which authorized CIA to proceed as a policy matter, was subject to a determination of legality by OLC.
July 24, 2002:
OLC orally advised the CIA that the Attorney General had concluded that certain proposed interrogation techniques were lawful and, on July 26, that the use of waterboarding was lawful.
Aug. 1, 2002:
OLC issued three documents analyzing U.S. obligations with respect to the treatment of detainees. Two of these three documents were unclassified: an unclassified opinion interpreting the federal criminal prohibition on torture, and a letter concerning U.S. obligations under the Convention Against Torture. [...]
According to CIA records, after receiving the legal approval of the Department of Justice and approval from the National Security Adviser, the CIA went forward with the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah.
"There were two reasons why these interrogations were so persistent, and why extreme methods were used," the former senior intelligence official said on condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity.
"The main one is that everyone was worried about some kind of follow-up attack (after 9/11). But for most of 2002 and into 2003, Cheney and Rumsfeld, especially, were also demanding proof of the links between al Qaida and Iraq that (former Iraqi exile leader Ahmed) Chalabi and others had told them were there."
Those links, between al Qaida and Saddam Hussein, were never proven, nor ever found, mainly because those links NEVER existed, as the CIA and others (presumably other intelligence agencies around the globe) told Vice President Cheney and Secretary Rumsfeld repeatedly:
"Cheney's and Rumsfeld's people were told repeatedly, by CIA . . . and by others, that there wasn't any reliable intelligence that pointed to operational ties between bin Laden and Saddam, and that no such ties were likely because the two were fundamentally enemies, not allies."
Gee, SINator, now I know why you want to call this a "political disagreement." You want to help cover the ass of the Bush Administration. But there's a problem for you if you're a Christian ... the justification for the Bush Administration's conduct at that point in time is, in a word, evil.
Making matters even worse, we've already prosecuted and sentenced those who tortured at Abu Ghraib, in compliance with the entire system set up by the Bush Administration:
And you want to protect the creators of that system. That's not a political disagreement, SINator. It's aiding and abetting a crime.
