The Cheney Torture Record...
Friday, December 19, 2014
Just wanted to say a word about the torture issue which is just now being addressed in Washington. I've just finished reading Angler, the Cheney Vice-Presidency. The book demonstrates clearly that torture was all a Cheney project.
The CIA does not go off on its own and start doing this stuff. It needed a directive from the executive. In this case, the executive was Cheney, not the other guy. The other guy was a nonentity, a front man and a dry drunk. The CEO was calling the shots, setting the policy, seeing that it was carried out, and getting rid of those who did not follow orders.
The chairman of the board, the nominal head of government, GW, was a figurehead. The Bush Presidency was the Cheney Regency. Note this item from today's Bloomberg news,
President George W. Bush was never briefed by the Central Intelligence Agency on the details of harsh interrogation techniques and secret detention of terror suspects for the first four years of its controversial program, and when he did find out the details, he was “uncomfortable” with some of the practices, according to a long-awaited report by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
It was Cheney who was keeping Bush in the picture, and it was Cheney who was telling the CIA what to do. The CIA did not come to the White House and say, hey, we want to do this. Cheney said let's do this, and the CIA said, well, OK, but it is against international law and against our own military code.
Cheney and his personal lawyer David Addington said, no, the Prez is the commander in chief, he can authorize anything, whatever he says is legal. And that was that. Cheney got Bush to sign off on it, or just used his own authority. Read Angler for all the shameful details.