Video and Transcript: Colin Powell on Face the Nation (24 May)

Video and Transcript: Colin Powell on Face the Nation.

On Sunday, former Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared on CBS's Face the Nation. The interview is the latest round in an ongoing battle with other Bush Administration officials, notably the former Vice President Dick Cheney, over national security issues, the Republican Party, and attitudes toward President Obama.


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SCHIEFFER: And good morning again. On this Memorial Day weekend, former Secretary of State and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Colin Powell is with us in the studio this morning. Thank you, General. It has been quite a two weeks, as you know. It was on this broadcast that your old boss and colleague, Dick Cheney, accused this administration of putting the nation's security at risk.

He finalized that argument in a speech last week. Said he had no regrets about the terrorist -- the methods in dealing with terrorists that the administration took. He criticized the closing of Guantanamo. I'm going to ask you about all of that, but I want to start where he ended his interview here on FACE THE NATION when he said some things about you. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCHIEFFER: Rush Limbaugh said the other day that the party would probably be better off if Colin Powell left and just became a Democrat. Colin Powell said Republicans would be better off if they didn't have Rush Limbaugh out speaking for them. Where do you come down?

DICK CHENEY, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT: Well, if I had to choose in terms of being a Republican, I'd go with Rush Limbaugh, I think. I think my take on it was Colin had already left the party. I didn't know he was still a Republican.

SCHIEFFER: So you think that he's not a Republican?

CHENEY: I just noted he endorsed the Democratic candidate for president this time, Barack Obama. I assume that that is some indication of his loyalty and his interest.

SCHIEFFER: And you said you'd take Rush Limbaugh over Colin Powell.

CHENEY: I would.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHIEFFER: Well, there you have it, General. So I guess the first question, are you a Republican?

POWELL: Let me answer it this way, if I may, Bob. Rush will not get his wish. And Mr. Cheney was misinformed. I am still a Republican. And I'd like to point out that in the course of my 50 years of voting for presidents, I have voted for the person I thought was bestqualified at that time to lead the nation. Last year I thought it was President-now Barack Obama. For the previous 20 years I voted solidly for Republican candidates. Voted for Ronald Reagan twice. George Bush 41 twice. George Bush 43 twice. I spent eight years in Bush administrations. I served Ronald Reagan for two years. I spoke at the 1996 convention and I spoke at the 2000 convention. What the concern about me is, well, is he too moderate? I have always felt that the Republican Party should be more inclusive than it generally has been over the years. And I believe we need a strong Republican Party that is not just anchored in the base but has built on the base to include more individuals. And if we don't do that, if we don't reach out more, the party is going to be sitting on a very, very narrow base. You can only do two things with a base. You can sit on it and watch the world go by, or you can build on the base. And I believe we should build on the base because the nation needs two parties. Two parties debating each other. But what we have to do is debate and define who we are and what we are and not just listen to diktats that come down from the right wing of the party.

SCHIEFFER: Well, why do you think the former vice president said what he said?

POWELL: Well, I assume that was his point of view. But he was misled if he thought I left the party. You know, neither he nor Rush Limbaugh are members of the membership committee of the Republican Party. I get to make my decision on that. And so I will continue to work in a way that I think is helpful to the country and helpful to the party. And there are good reasons for this. I mean, in the military we have something called afteraction reviews. After a battle or after a training exercise you bring all of the leaders in. And you say, what's going right? What's going wrong? What did do right or wrong? And how do we move forward? It's a no-holds-barred candid discussion of where we are. That's what the Republican Party needs now. When you look at the results of the election last year, lost the presidency by 10 million votes. Lost that campaign by 10 million votes. We saw both houses of Congress switch to the Democrats. We saw whole sections of the country move to the Democratic column, Virginia, my state, Democratic. Florida, Nevada, other places. We looked at all of the demographics of it, a Gallup poll had a series of indicators. And in almost every demographic indicator, the Republican Party is losing. North, south, east, west. Men, women, whites, blacks, Hispanics. And I think the Republican Party has to take a hard look at itself and decide what kind of party are we?

POWELL: Are we simply moving further to the right, and by so doing opening up the right-of-center and the center to be taken over by independents and to be taken over by Democrats? You look at the statistic in Pennsylvania that Arlen Specter has cited -- 200,000 Republicans in Pennsylvania switched their allegiance to become Democrats in the election of 2008. That kind of leakage cannot continue if the Republican Party is going to play a major role in the life of our country. And if you look at the other statistics that is around these days and the number of people identifying themselves as Republicans has dropped significantly, into the low 20s. And among those low 20s, they're not all conservatives. A lot of them are fairly moderate or right-of-center Republicans, who are concerned about the right wing. And they're not that vocal about it, because if you are vocal, you're going to get your voice mail filled up and you're going to get lots of emails, like I did.

SCHIEFFER: What about Rush Limbaugh? A lot of people who are Republicans say, hey, people are taking him too seriously. He is just an entertainer. But he's been on your case for quite a while. When you announced you were voting for Barack Obama, he said the only reason he's doing that is because Barack Obama is black. Was he calling you a racist?

POWELL: I don't know what he was doing by that, and I don't want to exchange insults with him. But I thought it was unfortunate. I laid out a very specific set of reasons as to why I was voting for Barack Obama. Mr. Limbaugh saw fit to dismiss all those reasons and put it into a racial context, that the only reason I did it is I was black and I had never voted for a Democrat before. Well, yes, I have. I voted for John Kennedy. I voted for Lyndon Johnson. I even voted for Jimmy Carter. And I've always tried to vote for the best man. But he put it in that racial context, and I thought that that was very unfortunate. What about the 69 million people who voted for Barack Obama? Did they all do it on the basis of race? Why doesn't he sort of comment on those? But Mr. Limbaugh is entitled to his opinion. And I don't say he shouldn't have a opinion. The nature of our country is we ought to debate these things. But he shouldn't have a veto over what someone thinks. And he's an entertainer. He is a radio figure, and he is a significant one. But he's more than that. When the chairman of the RNC, Michael Steele, issues the mildest of criticism concerning Mr. Limbaugh, and then 24 hours later the chairman of the RNC has to lay prostrate on the floor apologizing for it, and when two congressmen offer the mildest criticism of Mr. Limbaugh, they too within 24 hours have such pressure brought to bear on them that they have to change their view and apologize for criticizing him -- well, if he's out there, he should be subject to criticism, just as I am subject to criticism. Let's debate the future of the party. And let's let all segments
of the party come in. You know, my model for the Republican Party is a great man we just lost, a man by the name of Jack Kemp. Jack was as conservative as anybody. We all know Jack. And Jack also was a man who believed in inclusiveness, reaching out to minorities, reaching out to the poor, sharing the wealth. Which became a bad term last fall, but sharing the wealth of the country not only with the rich, but with those who are least advantaged in our society. It's that kind of Jack Kemp Republicanism that I like, and I would like to see the party move more in that kind of a direction.

SCHIEFFER: Let's talk a little bit about Guantanamo. The vice president came out very hard against the Obama administration and his policies. He said it would be a mistake to close Guantanamo. Others have said it would actually pose a danger to this country if these people are brought back. Do you think Guantanamo should be closed, General?

POWELL: Yes. I felt Guantanamo should be closed for the past six years, and I lobbied and presented reasons to President Bush. And Mr. Cheney is not only disagreeing with President Obama's policy. He's disagreeing with President Bush's policy. President Bush stated repeatedly to international audiences and to the country that he wanted to close Guantanamo. The problem he had was he couldn't get all the pieces together. Secretary Rice, Secretary of State Rice and Secretary of Defense Gates had come forward with plans, but the plans ran into difficulties with Department of Justice and others. So it is a complex problem, and President Bush wasn't able to close Guantanamo on his watch. And President Obama came in saying he would close Guantanamo, and he has run into some of those same sorts of problems. So I think we need to kind of take the heat out of this issue. I think President Obama didn't handle it very well by going up to the Congress and asking for $80 million without a plan. And by, frankly, giving enough time to opponents of it to marshal their forces as to why we shouldn't do this. But Guantanamo has caused us a great deal of trouble throughout the world. And Mr. Cheney the other day said, well, we're doing it to satisfy European intellectuals or something like that.

POWELL: No. We're doing it to reassure Europeans, Muslims, Arabs, all the people around the world that we are a nation of law. It isn't so much Guantanamo. It's the people at Guantanamo. How do we deal with them? We can't keep them locked up forever. This business about making the country less safe by bringing these people to our prison system, we have got two million people in jail in America. The highest incarceration rate in the world. And they all had lawyers. They had all had access to the writ of habeas corpus and they're all in jail. And I don't know, Bob, if you've ever seen some of these prison reality shows on television where they show you what a super lock-up is. I'm not terribly about worried one of these guys going to a super lock-up and being ...

SCHIEFFER: So you think they can be brought here and kept safely without posing any damage?

POWELL: Yes. Yes. I think it should have been done immediately and not start looking for $80 million to build prisons. Look, we're talking about roughly 240. The hard-core problem is that there are some of them that you really do not have cold evidence on that you could put before an Article III court. That's the problem that President Bush struggled with. It's the problem that President Obama is struggling with. We may have to find new legislation or have the Congress assist us with this. But let's get it into our system of laws with an executive and a legislative and a judicial branch all working it together.

SCHIEFFER: Have you talked to President Obama about this?

POWELL: Yes.

SCHIEFFER: You have? And what have you talked to him about?

POWELL: The views I have just expressed to you President Obama has heard from me.

SCHIEFFER: He has heard from you on this.

POWELL: I have been public on this.

SCHIEFFER: Do you think that he can get the Congress to go with him on this? I'm told there are people like Lindsey Graham and maybe even John McCain who might be willing to help him with this but only if he presents a detailed plan.

POWELL: I think that's the message that came out of Congress. We can't give you $80 million. There's a lot of internal home resistance to bringing these people into the country. So you come forward with a plan that makes some sense and you tell us how you're going to resolve all of these cases and do it in a way that we can support and then maybe we can move forward. So I think it was premature to ask for the money. It was premature to say we're going to give it to work out and then immediately ask for the money for something. John McCain has been a strong supporter from the very beginning of closing Guantanamo but in recent days he's been saying, I haven't moved off that point but you have to give us a plan. This has become very, very political. And so I think after we have had these dueling speeches and the controversy of recent days, things will settle down and the president can go off and spend some time with his staff thinking it through all the way and coming up with a plan just as he said he would do in his speech. And one point I have to make. It really comes out of the things that have been written lately. That is in the first year after 9/11, we did everything we could to stop the possibility of another 9/11. We put in place the PATRIOT Act. We used enhanced interrogation techniques. I shut down for the most part the visa system until we could fix it. But after about a year-and-a-half when it looked like things were relatively secure and we were doing a better job, then we started to relax the visa system once we fixed it because we can't keep moving in that direction with putting people in jail forever without resolving their cases. We're not letting people come to our country. So it was natural to start shifting back to our more normal ways of doing business and dealing with the rest of the world after we had achieved a level of security. We are more secure. I mean, my Republican friends sort of get mad when I say we need government. People want effective, responsible government. Republicans have not cut much government even though talk about limited government and cutting government. We created the Department of Homeland Security. Needed. We created the Transportation Security Agency that guards our terminals where people go in and out. Needed. We created a director of national intelligence. Needed. The American people want to see a FEMA that takes care of us in hurricanes and tornadoes. The American people want to see federal regulators making sure we never get into the kind of financial problem we had last year. And we're working our way out of it. So there is a need for government. What the American people want not just slogans, limited government. They want effective government. Government that works and just as much as we need. But if we need it, let's have it.

SCHIEFFER: All right. Let me ask you this. The former vice president said he had no regrets about the methods that were used including waterboarding. He actually authorized it. He says they may have saved thousands of lives. I want to ask you two questions. Do you agree with that? That these techniques were effective? And number two, when did you know about this business, general?

POWELL: When we started to examine these techniques I was in some meetings where they were discussed.

POWELL: I was not privy to the memos that were being written or the legal opinions that were being written.
I think it was unfortunate but we had a system that kept that in a very compartmented manner. And so I was apart that these enhanced interrogation techniques were being considered. And they were judged not to be torture at the time. And when you were facing the possibility of a 9/11, you had to give some -- some flexibility to the CIA. But it was under the Bush administration that they stopped using these techniques back in 19 -- in 2003. So obviously the CIA did not feel that we had anybody else in our custody that would need to have these techniques used. And as a result...

SCHIEFFER: Do you think they were effective?

POWELL: ... they haven't been used -- I have no idea. I hear that they were. I hear that they weren't. You see people from the FBI who come out and say, we got all of that information before any of that was done. I cannot answer that question. And the problem is, I don't know what I don't know.

SCHIEFFER: Let me just ask you this. Jan Crawford Greenburg of ABC News reported last year that the top people in the administration, you, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, the national security adviser, were actually brought in to meetings in the White House where these things were outlined. But you're saying you don't know -- at those meetings you're saying that nothing was (INAUDIBLE)?

POWELL: They were outlined. We were aware that these techniques were being discussed. And we were aware that legal opinions were being given that said they met the standard of the law. But over time, now that we look at it, it's easy now in the cold light of day to look back and say, you shouldn't have done any of that. But as Mr. Cheney has said very, very often, as has President Bush and all of us, if we had another attack like 9/11, say on 9/11 a year later, nobody would have forgiven us for not doing everything we could. And the CIA thought we needed those kinds of techniques but now we see that these are not appropriate. And I saw a guy on television being waterboarded yesterday, this correspondent, this television commentator, and in six seconds -- he thought he could take it. He thought it was just like swimming. In six seconds he was screaming that he had be released from this kind of waterboarding. And remember waterboarding comes out of your Survival, Evasion and Escape techniques. And those were intended to be torture to show our guys what they should be subjected to.

SCHIEFFER: We have just a second left. Memorial Day weekend. I know this is a meaningful weekend for you.

POWELL: This is a time when we reflect on the privilege we have had as citizens to have had other citizens willing to put their lives on the line. And so let's remember all of those who served their nation. Remember their families. And remember those who were injured and are still with us. And there will be another wonderful Memorial Day concert this evening on the West Lawn of the Capitol. And I will be there with a number of other people to celebrate the sacrifice of our young men and women, especially those who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan today. They are also a greatest generation.

SCHIEFFER: Thank you very much, General. Thanks for being with us.

The Uncomfortable Heaviness of Responsibility: The Obama National Security Speech

Charles Gannon, a regular Enduring America and Libertas contributor, offers this evaluation --- complementing and challenging "the gut reaction" of Scott Lucas last Friday --- of President Obama's sweeping speech on national security and civil liberties at the National Archives:

Although it was not the most game-changing statement, President Barack Obama's May 21 speech at the National Archives may be one of the most defining of his Administration. It grapples frankly with topics that are largely held to be "third rails" for Presidents --- national secrecy, special powers, and interrogation --- as well as problematic inheritances from prior administrations.

For purely personal and self-serving reasons, I found this paragraph the most striking of a difficult but honest and outstanding speech:

We see that, above all, in how the recent debate has been obscured by two opposite and absolutist ends. On one side of the spectrum, there are those who make little allowance for the unique challenges posed by terrorism, and who would almost never put national security over transparency. On the other end of the spectrum, there are those who embrace a view that can be summarized in two words: "anything goes." Their arguments suggest that the ends of fighting terrorism can be used to justify any means, and that the President should have blanket authority to do whatever he wants - provided that it is a President with whom they agree.

Both sides may be sincere in their views, but neither side is right. The American people are not absolutist, and they don't elect us to impose a rigid ideology on our problems. They know that we need not sacrifice our security for our values, nor sacrifice our values for our security, so long as we approach difficult questions with honesty, and care, and a dose of common sense."

The dangers of radicalism, indeed. And a textbook example of why I contributed a series of essays, "Addressing the Dangers of Extremism", to Enduring America's predecessor and partner website, Libertas, more than a year ago (http://www.libertas.bham.ac.uk/analysis/index.htm)

The argument of that essay series, and this speech, are the same: there will be no easy answers. A "mess" such as the one left by an eight-year neocon cabal, still scrambling to live another day with front-men as dubious as Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney, does not clean up easily, as Obama sagely avers. And his address of the thorny issues of national security goes beyond mere functional honesty: indeed, there is more than simple ideological even-handedness at work here.

Consider either of the extreme reactions to disclosure and due prcess that Obama accurately outlines. Stand back and "game out" the employment of either extreme --- "full disclosure" vs "ends justify any means". What do you see at the end of either extreme? Success? Closure? Justice? Then you are envisioning a very different simulation-enterprise than I am. Any radical approach will surely summon its equal and opposite force into existence. This is the equilibristic property intrinsic to the gyroscopic reckoning of pluralistic political culture.

In addition to appropriating and propagating an extremified view of the situation (which will alienate and counter-activate the center of the opinion bell-curve), the optiions at either end of the spectrum would send a signal that transcends the issues being addressed.

To examine any one issue as a wholly discrete political or juridical incident is a trait of ingenuousness that can only be bred and sustained in those rarified, hyper-idealizing environments nurtured in academies, think-tanks, and coffee-house/sports-bar convocations of True Believers. I propose this very different view: in the world of political realities, Everything Influences Everything Else--and I do not mean this in some nebulous, Butterfly-effect sense. Any monofocal, sweeping gesture by Obama has the power to topple numerous delicately-balanced matrices of imminent reform like just so many cascading dominoes.

The feel-good mantra of "fiat justitia, ruat caelum" (loosely, "let justice be done, though the heavens fall") is an ideological indulgence that sideliners can enjoy because they are not the ones holding the reins of responsibility. In stark contrast, I don't think the actions of any President, but particularly this one, can be adequately analyzed without bearing in mind that he DOES hold those heavy reins, and they compel a more inclusive and balanced view of one's actions --- and the dire cause-effect chains they can set in motion.

FBI Director Robert Mueller: 'Keep Away from Me'

The “America is less safe” rhetoric of the former Vice President Dick Cheney has finally found a receptive ear in the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

FBI Director Robert Mueller told Congress on Wednesday that bringing Guantanamo Bay detainees to the US could pose some risks even if they were kept in maximum-security prisons. According to Mueller, these risks consist of “the radicalization of others” and “potential individual attacks in the United States".

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCfaOB7QvdQ[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwuI5ofIR3M[/youtube]

A Gut Reaction to the Obama National Security Speech: Getting Stuck in A "Long War"

Obama Speech on “National Security” at the National Archives (21 May)
Dick Cheney Speech on “National Security” at American Enterprise Institute (21 May)

Halfway through President Obama's speech on national security, including torture, the Guantanamo Bay detention regime, and the tensions in transparency and state secrets, I thought:

He's nailed it. Flat-out nailed it.

Obama illuminated with flashes of rhetoric: "“We cannot keep this country safe unless we enlist the power of our most fundamental values." He used the setting of the National Archives, with America's founding documents: "We must never – ever – turn our back on [the Constitution's] enduring principles for expediency's sake." He turned inside-out the Bushian cloak of national security and "our boys" when he criticised waterboarding and other techniques of torture:

They undermine the rule of law. They alienate us in the world. They serve as a recruitment tool for terrorists, and increase the will of our enemies to fight us, while decreasing the will of others to work with America. They risk the lives of our troops by making it less likely that others will surrender to them in battle, and more likely that Americans will be mistreated if they are captured. In short, they did not advance our war and counter-terrorism efforts – they undermined them, and that is why I ended them once and for all.

In comparison to this powerful opening, the fear-mongering invocations, the evasions, and outright deceptions of Dick Cheney --- who is speaking as I type --- are not just tired and tiring excuses; they are close to obsolete.

But then, halfway through the speech, Obama got into trouble. Because it was then that he had to move from his powerful abstract of "values with security" to the realities of the Bushian policies that had wrenched them apart.

To solve the Guantanamo Bay riddle --- how to close the facility while maintaining the promise that not one "terrorist" would be free in America? --- Obama set out five categories of detainees. He was strongest when he spoke of the first category, those who would be tried in the US Federal criminal system: "Our courts and juries of our citizens are tough enough to convict terrorists, and the record makes that clear." And he was forthright on another category, the 21 detainees whose release has already been ordered by US judges: "The United States is a nation of laws, and we must abide by these rulings." He could just about get away with the category of 50 detainees who are not considered dangerous but who cannot be released to those home countries, setting aside the difficulty that no "third country" has yet accepted them.

But on two categories, Obama was vague to the point of contradiction. There are those who will be tried by the revived military commissions for "violations of laws of war". But which of the Guantanamo detainees are in this "war crimes" category? Is it the Al Qa'eda master planners like Khalid Shiekh Mohammed, whose terrorist actions do not fit the establshed category of war? Or is it Taliban commanders, who did wage war but did not necessarily carry out the atrocities --- which go far beyond fighting the US --- that are "war crimes"?

In fact, those above groups were covered in Obama's other, and most problematic category: "detainees at Guantanamo who cannot be prosecuted yet who pose a clear danger to the American people", expanded later by Obama in examples such as "people who have received extensive explosives training at al Qaeda training camps, commanded Taliban troops in battle, expressed their allegiance to Osama bin Laden, or otherwise made it clear that they want to kill Americans".

Obama's invocation of the category clearly covers cases, including that of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, where the Bush Administration fouled up the possibility of successful prosecution through its mishandling of evidence and use of torture. however, the President's murkiness becomes evident when one notes the inclusion of Taliban commanders. As prisoners of war, they should have been released once the battle in Afghanistan was over, with the downfall of their movement at the end of 2001.

But there's the rub, isn't the it? The war is never over. Not in Afghanistan, and now Pakistan, where "Taliban" are still fighting the US. And not beyond Afghanistan and Pakistan where, from Asia to Europe to the American continent, Al Qa'eda is always a menace.

That "long war", even perpetual war, definition is not a relic from the past. Before the powerful rhetoric that initially entranced me, Obama laid the trap:

We are less than eight years removed from the deadliest attack on American soil in our history. We know that al Qaeda is actively planning to attack us again. We know that this threat will be with us for a long time, and that we must use all elements of our power to defeat it.

It was the current President, not the past one, who renewed the declaration of war: "For the first time since 2002, we are providing the necessary resources and strategic direction to take the fight to the extremists who attacked us on 9/11 in Afghanistan and Pakistan." And it was Obama, and only Obama, who concluded his speech:

Unlike the Civil War or World War II, we cannot count on a surrender ceremony to bring this journey to an end. Right now, in distant training camps and in crowded cities, there are people plotting to take American lives. That will be the case a year from now, five years from now, and – in all probability – ten years from now.

This self-constructed admission --- we fight, we continue to fight, and we may always fight --- might explain why Obama's speech sagged badly in the second half as he discussed "transparency" vs. "security". To be honest, he should have left that section --- another attempt to justify both his decision to release the "torture memoranda" of the Bush Administration and his decision not to release photographs of abuse of detainees, his proposals to set guidelines for and oversight of "state secrets" --- at home. Although he may have the intention resolving this complex thicket, he gave the immediate game away when he said, in a time of "war", that he too can always invoke "national security": "Releasing these photos would inflame anti-American opinion, and allow our enemies to paint U.S. troops with a broad, damning and inaccurate brush, endangering them in theaters of war."

More immediately, long/perpetual war ensures that Guantanamo --- maybe with 50 or 100 detainees rather than 240 --- remains open past Obama's initial January 2010. Long/perpetual war has ensured that the tension of "values vs. security" has been taken from facilities in Iraq to other facilities and battlefields in Central Asia. And, even as Obama criticises the "fear-mongering" of the past, he can set up a binary of extremes to justify this middle-ground long/perpetual war:

There are those who make little allowance for the unique challenges posed by terrorism, and who would almost never put national security over transparency. On the other end of the spectrum, there are those who...suggest that the ends of fighting terrorism can be used to justify any means.

For me, this is an intelligent President. This is a President with good intentions. But this is a President who errs in his artificial juxtaposition of a misguided "focus on the past" with his preferred "focus on the future". He does so because --- hanging over the past, over the future, and over now --- are the perpetual tensions in his mission to "forge tough and durable approaches to fighting terrorism that are anchored in our timeless ideals".

Others like Dick Cheney will claim that their "tough and durable approaches" were right. Others like Obama's military commanders will claim that their "tough and durable approaches" are working. And so --- as Guantanamo drags on, as Camp Bagram in Afghanistan expands, as hope for America turns to hostility against America in other parts of the world --- "national security" will sit along more abuses and more deaths.

Video: Dissecting the Cheney Speech on National Security

Video and Transcript: Dick Cheney Speech on “National Security” at American Enterprise Institute (21 May)

Keith Olbermann: "Thank you, Sir, for admitting, obviously inadvertently, that you did not take a serious first look in the seven months and 23 days between your inauguration and 9/11. For that attack, Sir, you are culpable, morally, ethically. At best you were guilty of malfeasance and eternally-lasting stupidity. At worst, Sir, in the deaths of 9/11, you are negligent."

I am refraining from an analysis of former Vice President Dick Cheney's comments on national security yesterday, primarily because I hope that his speech --- which should be treated at most as self-justification --- will just go away. This is hope rather than expectation, however. Despite Dan Drezner's comment that President Obama has "adversaries more boneheaded than himself", Cheney's words will be treated as Tablets from the Mount by his supporters in the broadcast and print media.

So, as a pre-emptive strike against the upholding of Cheney's views as the thoughtful alternative in US homeland security and foreign policy, here are video commentaries from Lawrence O'Donnell and Keith Olbermann, followed by a thorough exposure of the former Vice President's distortions and deceptions by McClatchy News Service's Warren Strobel and Jonathan Landay:




[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KFy6QhMvBM[/youtube]

Cheney's speech contained omissions, misstatements
WARREN STROBEL AND JONATHAN LANDAY

WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Dick Cheney's defense Thursday of the Bush administration's policies for interrogating suspected terrorists contained omissions, exaggerations and misstatements.

In his address to the American Enterprise Institute , a conservative policy organization in Washington , Cheney said that the techniques the Bush administration approved, including waterboarding — simulated drowning that's considered a form of torture — forced nakedness and sleep deprivation, were "legal" and produced information that "prevented the violent death of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people."

He quoted the Director of National Intelligence, Adm. Dennis Blair , as saying that the information gave U.S. officials a "deeper understanding of the al Qaida organization that was attacking this country."

In a statement April 21 , however, Blair said the information "was valuable in some instances" but that "there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means. The bottom line is that these techniques 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."

A top-secret 2004 CIA inspector general's investigation found no conclusive proof that information gained from aggressive interrogations helped thwart any "specific imminent attacks," according to one of four top-secret Bush-era memos that the Justice Department released last month.

FBI Director Mueller Robert Muller told Vanity Fair magazine in December that he didn't think that the techniques disrupted any attacks.

— Cheney said that President Barack Obama's decision to release the four top-secret Bush administration memos on the interrogation techniques was "flatly contrary" to U.S. national security, and would help al Qaida train terrorists in how to resist U.S. interrogations.

However, Blair, who oversees all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, said in his statement that he recommended the release of the memos, "strongly supported" Obama's decision to prohibit using the controversial methods and that "we do not need these techniques to keep America safe."

— Cheney said that the Bush administration "moved decisively against the terrorists in their hideouts and their sanctuaries, and committed to using every asset to take down their networks."

The former vice president didn't point out that Osama bin Laden and his chief lieutenant, Ayman al Zawahri , remain at large nearly eight years after 9-11 and that the Bush administration began diverting U.S. forces, intelligence assets, time and money to planning an invasion of Iraq before it finished the war in Afghanistan against al Qaida and the Taliban .

There are now 49,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan fighting to contain the bloodiest surge in Taliban violence since the 2001 U.S.-led intervention, and Islamic extremists also have launched their most concerted attack yet on neighboring, nuclear-armed Pakistan .

— Cheney denied that there was any connection between the Bush administration's interrogation policies and the abuse of detainee at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, which he blamed on "a few sadistic guards . . . in violation of American law, military regulations and simple decency."

However, a bipartisan Senate Armed Services Committee report in December traced the abuses at Abu Ghraib to the approval of the techniques by senior Bush administration officials, including former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld .

"The abuse of detainees in U.S. custody cannot simply be attributed to the actions of 'a few bad apples' acting on their own," said the report issued by Sens. Carl Levin , D- Mich. , and John McCain , R- Ariz. "The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality and authorized their use against detainees."

— Cheney said that "only detainees of the highest intelligence value" were subjected to the harsh interrogation techniques, and he cited Khalid Sheikh Mohammad , the alleged mastermind of the 9-11 attacks.

He didn't mention Abu Zubaydah, the first senior al Qaida operative to be captured after 9-11. Former FBI special agent Ali Soufan told a Senate subcommittee last week that his interrogation of Zubaydah using traditional methods elicited crucial information, including Mohammed's alleged role in 9-11.

The decision to use the harsh interrogation methods "was one of the worst and most harmful decisions made in our efforts against al Qaida ," Soufan said. Former State Department official Philip Zelikow , who in 2005 was then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's point man in an internal fight to overhaul the Bush administration's detention policies, joined Soufan in his criticism.

— Cheney said that "the key to any strategy is accurate intelligence," but the Bush administration ignored warnings from experts in the CIA , the Defense Intelligence Agency , the State Department , the Department of Energy and other agencies, and used false or exaggerated intelligence supplied by Iraqi exile groups and others to help make its case for the 2003 invasion.

Cheney made no mention of al Qaida operative Ali Mohamed al Fakheri , who's known as Ibn Sheikh al Libi , whom the Bush administration secretly turned over to Egypt for interrogation in January 2002 . While allegedly being tortured by Egyptian authorities, Libi provided false information about Iraq's links with al Qaida , which the Bush administration used despite doubts expressed by the DIA.

A state-run Libyan newspaper said Libi committed suicide recently in a Libyan jail.

— Cheney accused Obama of "the selective release" of documents on Bush administration detainee policies, charging that Obama withheld records that Cheney claimed prove that information gained from the harsh interrogation methods prevented terrorist attacks.

"I've formally asked that (the information) be declassified so the American people can see the intelligence we obtained," Cheney said. "Last week, that request was formally rejected."

However, the decision to withhold the documents was announced by the CIA , which said that it was obliged to do so by a 2003 executive order issued by former President George W. Bush prohibiting the release of materials that are the subject of lawsuits.

— Cheney said that only "ruthless enemies of this country" were detained by U.S. operatives overseas and taken to secret U.S. prisons.

A 2008 McClatchy investigation, however, found that the vast majority of Guantanamo detainees captured in 2001 and 2002 in Afghanistan and Pakistan were innocent citizens or low-level fighters of little intelligence value who were turned over to American officials for money or because of personal or political rivalries.

In addition, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Oct. 5, 2005 , that the Bush administration had admitted to her that it had mistakenly abducted a German citizen, Khaled Masri , from Macedonia in January 2004 .

Masri reportedly was flown to a secret prison in Afghanistan , where he allegedly was abused while being interrogated. He was released in May 2004 and dumped on a remote road in Albania .

In January 2007 , the German government issued arrest warrants for 13 alleged CIA operatives on charges of kidnapping Masri.

— Cheney slammed Obama's decision to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and criticized his effort to persuade other countries to accept some of the detainees.

The effort to shut down the facility, however, began during Bush's second term, promoted by Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates .

"One of the things that would help a lot is, in the discussions that we have with the states of which they (detainees) are nationals, if we could get some of those countries to take them back," Rice said in a Dec. 12, 2007 , interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. "So we need help in closing Guantanamo ."

— Cheney said that, in assessing the security environment after 9-11, the Bush team had to take into account "dictators like Saddam Hussein with known ties to Mideast terrorists."

Cheney didn't explicitly repeat the contention he made repeatedly in office: that Saddam cooperated with al Qaida , a linkage that U.S. intelligence officials and numerous official inquiries have rebutted repeatedly.

The late Iraqi dictator's association with terrorists vacillated and was mostly aimed at quashing opponents and critics at home and abroad.

The last State Department report on international terrorism to be released before 9-11 said that Saddam's regime "has not attempted an anti-Western terrorist attack since its failed plot to assassinate former President ( George H.W.) Bush in 1993 in Kuwait ."

A Pentagon study released last year, based on a review of 600,000 Iraqi documents captured after the U.S.-led invasion, concluded that while Saddam supported militant Palestinian groups — the late terrorist Abu Nidal found refuge in Baghdad , at least until Saddam had him killed — the Iraqi security services had no "direct operational link" with al Qaida .