by Lawrence Wilkerson
May 13, 2009
from
TheWashingtonPost Website
This is a guest post exclusive to The
Washington Note by Col. Lawrence B. Wilkerson, who is former
chief of staff of the Department of State during the term of
Secretary of
State Colin Powell.
Lawrence Wilkerson is also Pamela Harriman Visiting
Professor at the College of William & Mary. |
Last night I was on Rachel Maddow's show on MSNBC at the top of the hour.
But before I came on, through the earpiece I listened to the five minutes
that Rachel sketched as a lead-in. Most of it was videotape from the last
few days of former Vice President Dick Cheney extolling the virtues of harsh
interrogation, torture, and his leadership. I had heard some of it earlier
of course but not all of it and not in such a tightly-packed package.
Let's just say that five minutes of the Sith Lord was stunningly inaccurate.
So, when I got home last night, I thought long and hard about what I knew at
this point in my investigations with respect to the former VP's office.
Here
it is.
-
First, more Americans were killed by terrorists
on Cheney's watch than on
any other leader's watch in US history. So his constant claim that no
Americans were killed in the "seven and a half years" after
9/11 of his vice
presidency takes on a new texture when one considers that fact. And it is a
fact.
There was absolutely no policy priority attributed to al-Qa'ida by the
Cheney-Bush administration in the months before 9/11.
-
Counterterrorism czar
Dick Clarke's position was downgraded
-
Al-Qa'ida was put in the background
so as to emphasize Iraq
-
The policy priorities were lowering
taxes, abrogating the ABM Treaty and building ballistic missile
defenses
-
Second, the fact no attack has occurred on U.S. soil since 9/11
- much touted
by Cheney - is due almost entirely to the nation's having deployed over
200,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and not to "the Cheney method of
interrogation."
Those troops have kept al-Qa'ida at bay, killed many of them, and certainly
"fixed" them, as we say in military jargon. Plus, sadly enough, those
200,000 troops present a far more lucrative and close proximity target for
al-Qa'ida than the United States homeland. Testimony to that fact is clear:
almost 5,000 American troops have died, more Americans than died on 9/11.
Of
course, they are the type of Americans for whom Cheney hasn't much use as he
declared rather dramatically when he achieved no less than five draft
deferments during the Vietnam War.
-
Third - and here comes the blistering fact
- when Cheney claims that if
President Obama stops "the Cheney method of interrogation and torture", the
nation will be in danger, he is perverting the facts once again. But in a
very ironic way.
My investigations have revealed to me - vividly and clearly
- that once the
Abu Ghraib photographs were made public in the Spring of 2004, the CIA, its
contractors, and everyone else involved in administering "the Cheney methods
of interrogation", simply shut down. Nada. Nothing. No torture or harsh
techniques were employed by any U.S. interrogator. Period.
People were too
frightened by what might happen to them if they continued.
What I am saying is that no torture or harsh interrogation techniques were
employed by any U.S. interrogator for the entire second term of Cheney-Bush,
2005-2009.
So, if we are to believe the protestations of Dick Cheney, that Obama's having shut down the "Cheney interrogation methods" will endanger
the nation, what are we to say to Dick Cheney for having endangered the
nation for the last four years of his vice presidency?
Likewise, what I have learned is that as the administration authorized harsh
interrogation in April and May of 2002 - well before the Justice Department
had rendered any legal opinion - its principal priority for intelligence was
not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but
discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qa'ida.
So furious was this effort that on one particular detainee, even when the
interrogation team had reported to Cheney's office that their detainee "was
compliant" (meaning the team recommended no more torture), the VP's office
ordered them to continue the enhanced methods. The detainee had not revealed
any al-Qa'ida-Baghdad contacts yet.
This ceased only after Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi,
under waterboarding in Egypt, "revealed" such contacts. Of course later we
learned that al-Libi revealed these contacts only to get the torture to
stop.
There in fact were no such contacts. (Incidentally, al-Libi just "committed
suicide" in Libya. Interestingly, several U.S. lawyers working with tortured
detainees were attempting to get the Libyan government to allow them to
interview al-Libi....)
Less important but still busting my chops as a Republican, is the damage
that the Sith Lord Cheney is doing to my political party.
He and
Rush Limbaugh seem to be its leaders now.
...seem to be either so
enamored of Cheney-Limbaugh (or fearful of them?) or, on the other hand, so
appalled by them, that the cat has their tongues.
And meanwhile fewer
Americans identify as Republicans than at any time since WWII. We're at 21%
and falling - right in line with the number of cranks, reprobates, and
loonies in the country.
Go
home. Spend your 70 million. Luxuriate in your Eastern Shore mansion. Shoot
quail with your friends - and your friends.
Stay out of our way as we try to repair the extensive damage you've done
- to
the country and to its Republican Party.