Democrats.com – 2009-05-26 22:54:06
http://www.democrats.com/iraq-torture-petition?cid=ZGVtczM4NzkzZGVtcw==
May 26, 2009) — Just five days after 9/11, Dick Cheney announced his plan to work “the dark side” on Meet the Press. For the next seven years, he fulfilled his promise through torture and other war crimes.
Cheney’s torture began early in 2002, a full year before the invasion of Iraq. On Cheney’s instructions, the CIA took Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi away from the FBI, with whom he was cooperating, and sent him to Egypt to be tortured into “confessing” Iraq trained Al Qaeda in use of chemical and biological weapons.
That false “confession” was immediately discredited by the DIA (and later by the CIA), but still featured in the most important pre-war speeches by Dick Cheney, George Bush, and Colin Powell. (In April, as U.S. interest in al-Libi’s story grew, he was found dead in a Libyan prison and declared a “suicide.”)
Next, the CIA waterboarded Abu Zubaydah 83 times in August 2002. That came just before the “September rollout” of the Iraq propaganda campaign by Andy Card, Karl Rove, and the “White House Iraq Group.” (The CIA broke the law in September 2002 by failing to disclose this torture to Congress – especially Intelligence Committee Democrats Nancy Pelosi and Bob Graham.)
Next, the CIA waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 183 times in March 2003, the month Bush invaded Iraq without U.N. approval. (U.N. inspectors proved Saddam Hussein destroyed all his chemical weapons after the Gulf War of 1991.)
Cheney’s torture continued through 2003 at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib — after U.S. troops found no WMD’s and Ambassador Joe Wilson revealed Bush’s pre-war nuclear lies.
As with Watergate, a handful of gutsy journalists have assembled the hidden pieces of this scandal: Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow of MSNBC, Jonathan Landay of McClatchy, Marcy Wheeler (emptywheel) of FireDogLake, Greg Sargent and Dan Froomkin of the Washington Post, and Paul Krugman and Frank Rich of the New York Times.
But most of the Corporate Media refuses to cover the biggest scandal in American history. Some are even manufacturing new Big Lies to cover up the old ones — including the Big Lie that Nancy Pelosi approved waterboarding in September 2002.
It’s time for Congress to investigate the massive Iraq-Torture Scandal — and for the Department of Justice to prosecute Dick Cheney for creating it.
Dick Cheney’s Trip to the ‘Dark Side’
In 2002 and 2003, Dick Cheney ordered the torture of key prisoners captured in Afghanistan and Iraq. Cheney says he ordered torture to stop another terrorist attack, but the evidence is now clear: Cheney wanted false “confessions” to justify the unprovoked U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Those “confessions” were featured in key pre-war speeches by Cheney, George Bush, and Colin Powell that betrayed Congress, the American people, and the world. Thus the “Torture” scandal and the “Iraq” scandal are not two separate scandals, but one massive and historically disastrous scandal: the Iraq-Torture Scandal.
Cheney claims his torture “saved hundreds of thousands of lives.” In reality, it cost hundreds of thousands of lives – innocent Iraqi lives. It also killed over 4,300 U.S. soldiers, maimed hundreds of thousands more, cost U.S. taxpayers $3 trillion dollars, and profoundly damaged U.S. credibility and security.
Dick Cheney understands the enormity of his crimes and launched a public relations war to protect himself, including carefully-chosen TV interviews and speeches. His daughter (and chief defender) Liz Cheney admitted her father’s greatest fear is prosecution.
It’s time for Congress to investigate the massive Iraq-Torture Scandal – and for the Department of Justice to prosecute Dick Cheney for creating it.
• Please sign our new petition to Congress and Attorney General Holder:
http://www.democrats.com/iraq-torture-petition?cid=ZGVtczM4NzkzZGVtcw==
The Petition
In 2002 and 2003, Dick Cheney ordered the torture of key prisoners captured in Afghanistan and Iraq, especially al-Libi, Abu Zubaydah, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
Cheney says he ordered torture to stop another terrorist attack, but the evidence is now clear: Cheney wanted false “confessions” to justify the unprovoked U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Those “confessions” were featured in key pre-war speeches by Cheney, George Bush, and Colin Powell that betrayed Congress, the American people, and the world.
Thus the “Torture” scandal and the “Iraq” scandal are not two separate scandals, but one massive and historically disastrous scandal: the Iraq-Torture Scandal.
Cheney claims his torture “saved hundreds of thousands of lives.” In reality, it cost hundreds of thousands of lives – innocent Iraqi lives. It also killed over 4,300 U.S. soldiers, maimed hundreds of thousands more, cost U.S. taxpayers $3 trillion dollars, and profoundly damaged U.S. credibility and security.
Dick Cheney understands the enormity of his crimes and launched a public relations war to protect himself, including carefully-chosen TV interviews and speeches. His daughter (and chief defender) Liz Cheney admitted her father’s greatest fear is prosecution.
It’s time for Congress to investigate the massive Iraq-Torture Scandal – and for the Department of Justice to prosecute Dick Cheney for creating it.
Liz Cheney Accidentally Lets The Truth Fly:
Dad Is Afraid Of Prosecution
Nicole Belle / Crooks and Liars.com
(May 23, 2009) — Oopsie, I guess we really can’t count this as a mark for “out of the mouth of babes”, but Liz Cheney, perhaps inadvertently, admitted that part of the reason we’ve seen Dick Cheney more in the last two months than we did in the eight years of the Bush administration is that he is very nervous that there will be investigations and prosecutions in his future:
(M)any in the media have asked why Cheney — someone who had avoided the media at all costs during his eight years as vice president — would be airing his opinions in such a forceful and public way. Indeed, Cheney himself has answered this question, claiming he is speaking out because he believes that torture and other Bush administration anti-terror policies — many of which Obama is abandoning — were “exactly the right thing to do” and that “there isn’t anybody there on the other side to tell the truth.”
In turn, media figures have answered the question in much the same way. “I think he genuinely believes we are threatened now more because of what Obama is doing,” MSNBC’s Pat Buchanan has said. CNN’s David Gergen said, “I think Dick Cheney almost has a Churchillian view of this, and that is somebody has got to stand up and be the voice in the wilderness.” But while the narrative of Cheney’s motives focuses mainly on the righteous, it has all but ignored the selfish — that Cheney is trying to muddle the public debate with the goal of reducing public support for a criminal inquiry into the torture regime that he authorized.
Last night on CNN, however, Cheney’s daughter Liz revealed that fear of prosecution is indeed a motivating factor in the former vice president’s current media campaign:
L. CHENEY: I don’t think he planned to be doing this, you know, when they left office in January. But I think, as it became clear that President Obama was not only going to be stopping some of these policies, that he was going to be doing things like releasing the — the techniques themselves, so that the terrorists could now train to them, that he was suggesting that perhaps we would even be prosecuting former members of the Bush administration.
Sad that this “Get Daddy Out Of Jail Free” ploy seems to have all the news outlets lapping it up with nary a word on what the motives might be for a former Vice President to break with protocol and criticize a sitting President (and by doing so, implicitly admitting that Cheney–not Bush–was in charge). Can you imagine how the right wing noise machine would have gone into overdrive if Clinton had started criticizing Bush for not taking the al Qaeda threat seriously at the beginning of his presidency? By all reports, that’s what happened. Richard Clarke was demoted, his reports ignored, and then 9/11 happened on their watch. And now terrorism has increased worldwide four-fold. However, even with this miserable track record (kept from the public by these media outlets eager for a Cheney appearance), Cheney thinks his opinion has any value to the discussion?
Steve Benen wonders if there isn’t a more pecuniary motive to Cheney’s sudden appearances (twelve in nine and a half days over four networks). Of course, Liz Cheney may also be trying to establish herself as a credible candidate in 2012 too:
The hottest Republican property out there isn’t former Vice President Dick Cheney but his daughter Liz, who has taken to the airwaves to defend her dad and the whole Bush administration on national security and Guantánamo Bay issues. Liz Cheney, who followed the former veep’s hard-hitting speech criticizing President Obama’s policies with a CNN appearance, is becoming so popular in conservative circles that some want her to run for office. “She’s awesome. Everyone wants her to run,” said a close friend.
Posted in accordance with Title 17, Section 107, US Code, for noncommercial, educational purposes.
