On Fox, Rove gave false account of Blair's position on torture
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SUMMARY: Karl Rove falsely claimed Dennis Blair "acknowledges" that harsh interrogation techniques "allowed us to stop these attacks." In fact, Blair has said that the techniques yielded information that "provided a deeper understanding" of Al Qaeda, not that the information prevented any specific attacks.
During the May 11 edition of Fox News' On the Record, Fox News contributor Karl Rove falsely claimed that "the director of National Intelligence under President Obama acknowledges that these [harsh interrogation] techniques yielded vast amounts of information that allowed us to stop these attacks." Rove added, "And if you do that -- if you stop using these techniques ... it makes the world a less safe place for America and our allies." In fact, while Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair wrote in an April 16 letter that "[h]igh value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qa'ida organization that was attacking this country," Blair did not claim that information gleaned from harsh interrogations prevented any specific attacks, and he explicitly rejected Rove's claim that ceasing to use those techniques "makes the world a less safe place for America and our allies." Indeed, in an April 21 statement, Blair said the use of the techniques was not in the country's best interest: "The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security."
As Media Matters for America has documented, Fox News contributor and Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol has also falsely suggested that Blair supports the use of harsh interrogation methods.
From the May 11 edition of Fox News' On the Record with Greta Van Susteren:
GRETA VAN SUSTEREN (host): All right, switch gears. The former vice president, Dick Cheney, over the weekend and the last couple weeks, has been talking about how under the new administration that -- and I don't mean to put words in his mouth, but I guess I'm going to do so now -- is that we're at greater risk under the new administration than the old administration. How do we know that?
ROVE: Because he understands intimately the kinds of changes that have been made and how these are going to affect our ability to collect actionable intelligence that allows us to break up these plots before they are launched. And I frankly agree with the vice president on this.
I think Vice President Cheney has made a reasoned, thoughtful series of observations about how doing things -- well, let me give you just one example. Taking, for example, the memoranda about the enhanced interrogation techniques and making them public has been a value to our enemy. They have -- it has served, frankly, I think, as a recruiting tool.
They can now take these memoranda and go to prospective recruits and say this is the worst that the enemy, the United States, would ever do to you, and they've even foresworn these things. We can help you prepare you to deal with these things, but even the enemy is so weak they're not going to use these techniques on you. And it's given them a tool to make them more attractive to recruit people, and -- you know, this kind of thing is harmful to us over the long haul.
I mean, if the enemy thinks that we're going to deal with them toughly and severely, and they've got to know -- they've got to know that these methods have yielded an enormous amount of intelligence, which has allowed us to break up their networks. I mean, even the director of National Intelligence under President Obama acknowledges that these techniques yielded vast amounts of information that allowed us to stop these attacks.
And if you do that -- if you stop using these techniques, and -- it gives -- it makes the world a less safe place for America and our allies.
The FACTS are that the Bush Administration fell down on the job and neglected fighting against terrorism during the first 9 months of his presidency. It wasn't until 9/11 that they woke up and said, "oh, geez, now we HAVE to do something."
By the way here are the "Harsh Techniques" as reported by ABC on Nov. 18, 2005:
1. The Attention Grab: The interrogator forcefully grabs the shirt front of the prisoner and shakes him.
2. Attention Slap: An open-handed slap aimed at causing pain and triggering fear.
3. The Belly Slap: A hard open-handed slap to the stomach. The aim is to cause pain, but not internal injury. Doctors consulted advised against using a punch, which could cause lasting internal damage.
4. Long Time Standing: This technique is described as among the most effective. Prisoners are forced to stand, handcuffed and with their feet shackled to an eye bolt in the floor for more than 40 hours. Exhaustion and sleep deprivation are effective in yielding confessions.
5. The Cold Cell: The prisoner is left to stand naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees. Throughout the time in the cell the prisoner is doused with cold water.
6. Water Boarding: The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner's face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.
I guess beheading didn't make the list. Maybe you guys aught to look at the Al Qaeda list for Harsh Techniques.
I really do understand that urge. And if you could prove to me that someone was guilty, I'd almost agree to eye-for-an-eye justice. The problem with that is, that's what our enemies think they are doing. And where they come from, their very legal system is grounded in eye-for-an-eye. It's a 3000 year old tradition that probably dates back to Hammurabi, at least. So getting into eye-for-an-eye with them is pretty stupid.
I know whereof I speak. There are others who know a lot more than me, but there are a lot more who know a lot less, and you're one of them. I was an army interrogator until 2004: MOS 97E (now 35M, but I was never a 35M). Google either one.
Here's my list of 6.
1) Because all of the techniques you list are violations of the Geneva Convention. U.S. prisoners have died from stress positions. Even if they hadn't, sleep deprivation is also proscribed. One of the proscriptions is "degrading" treatment.
This is a country of laws, not of men--random men doing random things for random reasons to random people accused of doing random things. The GC is one of those laws. (Sorry, it's true. Blame the Germans.)
The Bush Administration never denied that these techniques were a violation of GC; only that the GC didn't apply because these were not uniformed combatants--we sent those to our allies to torture through extraordinary rendition. The U.S. never delegates intelligence duties. Our own intelligence agencies (FBI/CIA/NSA/DIA) don't even trust each other...and they're American! And we (apparently) believe that torture works. So why would we ever--EVER--send away a prisoner with intelligence to another country in the middle-east riddled with anti-US sympathizers (they all are)?
No, really. Think about that.
The answer is simple: because we knew it would be illegal to do it ourselves.
2) The Geneva Convention protects things like civilians, churches (I'm guessing you like those), hospitals, U.S. soldiers, etc.
3) Following the Geneva Convention encourages our enemies to treat our soldiers/prisoners with the same rights.[Also, the enemy is more likely to surrender to a benevolent law-abiding United States; more likely to fight to the bitter end if we're not.*
4) These harsh interrogation techniques are not generally being used on terrorists or criminals: they are being used on suspects of same, or people suspected of being connected to suspects of same.
For example, cousins. Multiple wives means hundreds of cousins. Imagine if some 2nd cousin from Florida you barely know was convicted of wanting to blow up the Sears Tower (even though he had no plan or capacity to do so). Suddenly, you've got a hood on your face and are whisked off to Gitmo to have 1 through 6 done to you until you confess or tell them everything they want to hear about said 2nd cousin. Indefinitely. Your family can't see you. If you're lucky, a lawyer can talk to you, but they can't see evidence against you or go to court.
5) Torture does not yield reliable information or actionable intelligence (unless you just want to fabricate something to take action, like WMD's). It yields whatever you want it to yield. Or nothing. Whatever comes out of your terrified mouth.
P.S. Ask a soldier how they felt about SERE training. If they thought it was laughable. Multiply SERE by 10 for difficulty and 100 for time and you have GITMO.
6) Standard interrogation techniques not only work fine, they work better. They can turn a prisoner into an informant, a spy, a friend, or even an ally. You learn a lot more that way. Releasing an informant creates intelligence for the future. Torture freezes what they know in time. Torture creates only enemies, or corpses.
* Admittedly, this hasn't worked out so well for us, so far. But if we want to claim the high-ground, we should probably be on it.
Unfortunately, for the last 7 years, we've tortured our (alleged) enemies and bombed their civilians. A lot. We don't even deny either case. For torture, we say it's okay because it was effective, and for bombing civilians, we argue about how many we bombed; then, when we have a small number, we pay them a whopping $1000 in death benefits to go away. (It seems to me, you could at least pay them as much as the value of the bomb we used. More humane.)
Even if you don't buy that, not all of our enemies have been terrorists or unconventional, nor, presumably will they always be so. If you think we will never have conventional enemies again, then you should but pushing for major cuts in spending on things like tanks, battleships, and submarines. We didn't need tanks in the gulf war, but at least we used them. When was the last time we fought a naval engagement?