Quote:

---

No charges against CIA officials for waterboarding
By JENNIFER LOVEN and DEVLIN BARRETT – 10 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration on Thursday informed CIA officials who used waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics on terror suspects that they will not be prosecuted, senior administration officials told The Associated Press.
Even before President Barack Obama took office in January, aides signaled his administration was not likely to bring criminal charges against CIA employees for their roles in the secret, coercive terrorist interrogation program. It had been deemed legal at the time through opinions issued by the Justice Department under the Bush administration.
But the statement being issued Thursday by Attorney General Eric Holder, the nation's chief law enforcement officer, is the first definitive assurance that those CIA officials are in the clear, as long as their actions were in line with the legal advice at the time.
The officials spoke about the Holder statement ahead of its release on condition of anonymity, so as not to pre-empt the attorney general.
The CIA has acknowledged using waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning, on three high-level terror detainees in 2002 and 2003, with the permission of the White House and the Justice Department. Former CIA Director Michael Hayden said waterboarding has not been used since, but some human rights groups have urged Obama to hold CIA employees accountable for what they, and many Obama officials and others around the world, say was torture.
The Holder statement was being issued by the Justice Department along with the release of four significant Bush-era legal opinions governing — in graphic and extensive detail — the interrogation of terror detainees, the officials said. One of the memos was produced by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel in August 2002, the other three in 2005.
The memos, released to meet a court-approved deadline in a lawsuit against the government in New York by the American Civil Liberties Union, detail the dozen harsh techniques approved for use by CIA interrogators, the officials said. A statement from Obama was also being released along with Holder's comments and the documents.
One memo specifically authorized a method for combining multiple techniques, a practice human rights advocates argue is particularly harmful and crosses the line into torture even if any of the individual methods do not.
The Obama administration last month released nine legal memos related to the interrogation program, and probably will release more as the lawsuit proceeds. But the four released Thursday represent the fullest accounting by the government of the methods authorized and used, and is the complete list, the officials said.
There is very little redaction, or blacking out, of detail in the memos, the officials said.
The methods include keeping detainees naked for long periods, keeping them in a painful standing position for long periods, and depriving them of solid food. Other tactics included using a plastic neck collar to slam detainees into walls, keeping the detainee's cell cold for long periods, and beating and kicking the detainee. Sleep-deprivation, prolonged shackling, and threats to a detainee's family were also used.
Among the things not allowed in the memo were allowing a prisoner's body temperature or caloric intake to fall below a certain level, because either could cause permanent damage, the officials said.
The techniques were applied to 14 suspects considered very senior terrorists.
Many of the methods were detailed in a secret 2007 report by the International Committee of the Red Cross. The New York Review of Books recently obtained a copy of the report.
The ACLU suit has sought to use the Freedom of Information Act to shed light on the treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody abroad — even though the Bush administration eventually abandoned many of the legal conclusions and the Obama administration has gone further to actively dismantle most of President George W. Bush's anti-terror program.
Obama has ordered the CIA's secret overseas prisons known as "black sites" closed, ended so-called "extraordinary renditions" of terrorism suspects if there is any reason to believe the third country would torture them, and restricted CIA questioners to only those interrogation methods and protocols approved for use by the U.S. military until a complete review of the program is conducted.
Also Thursday, Holder was formally revoking every legal opinion or memo issued during Bush's presidency that justified interrogation programs. Obama had already said his administration would not rely upon them.
Still, the documents have been the subject of a long, fierce debate in and outside government over how much officials should say about the tough treatment of detainees.
The Bush administration held the view that the president had the authority to claim broad powers that could not be checked by Congress or the courts in order to keep Americans safe. Obama and Holder, among others, have said that the use of such unchecked powers has actually made Americans less safe, by increasing anti-U.S. sentiment, endangering American troops when captured and handing terrorists a recruiting tool.
Even so, the officials described the president's process of deciding how much to release in response to the suit as a very difficult one. Four weeks in the making, the process resulted in intense debates involving the president, Cabinet members, lower-level officials and even former administration officials.
Obama was concerned that releasing the information could endanger ongoing operations, American personnel or U.S. relationships with foreign intelligence services. CIA officials, in particular, needed reassuring, the officials said.
But in the end, the view of the Justice Department prevailed, that the FOIA law required the release and that the government would be forced to do so by the court if it didn't do so itself, the officials said. Also, Obama was reassured about the potential national security implications by the fact that much of the information contained in the memos was no longer secret, having been widely publicized — including some of it by Bush himself — and by the fact that the program itself no longer exists.
Those assurances are not likely to innoculate Obama against criticism from conservatives. Last month, Vice President Dick Cheney said, for instance, that Obama's decisions to revoke Bush-era terrorist detainee policies will "raise the risk to the American people of another attack."
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by chrisisall:
Obama is starting to suck a little.
Oh well.


The laughing Chrisisall

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AURaptor:


Does this not give you one moment for pause ? Maybe, that if even if Mr Obamarrific himself won't pursue charges on the issue of torture, that maybe, JUST maybe, Bush and Cheney weren't as evil as the Left had tried to paint?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AURaptor:
Does this not give you one moment for pause ? Maybe, that if even if Mr Obamarrific himself won't pursue charges on the issue of torture, that maybe, JUST maybe, Bush and Cheney weren't as evil as the Left had tried to paint?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by citizen:

Does the fact that he's just carrying on like Bush not make you like him more?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by chrisisall:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by citizen:

Does the fact that he's just carrying on like Bush not make you like him more?

---

No, AU still hates him because he talks like a Socialist.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AURaptor:



I'd say why doesn't that give YOU pause to think on for a while ? So many across the board changes, in all areas, yet THIS one remains the same? Don't seem quite right, do it ?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AURaptor:
A honest question from CITIZEN ?

Pinch me.

What's to like ? There's a REASON why he's carrying on , just like Bush, on this matter. While Mr Obamarrific has no problems making SWEEPING changes in most other areas of Government, he's sorta changed his tune on such matters on how to treat terrorist. Sure, we might not call them that any more, but we'll sure TREAT them the same.

We'll give concessions to Iran and N.Korea, but we'll still not pamper the Islamo terrorist. ]

I'd say why doesn't that give YOU pause to think on for a while ? So many across the board changes, in all areas, yet THIS one remains the same? Don't seem quite right, do it ?

Guess things weren't as bad as some others , politically motivated as they were, had claimed.

---

Quote:

---

We'll give concessions to Iran and N.Korea, but we'll still not pamper the Islamo terrorist.

---

Quote:

---

I don't see why the President of the United States being pro torture should say anything about me, regardless of his US political party.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AURaptor:


THERE NEVER WAS ANY "PRO TORTURE" attitudes to be FOR in the first place. I was all a bunch of lies and, quite frankly - BULLSHIT , made up by those who hate Bush

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AURaptor:
So simple and yet I have to spell it out for you

THERE NEVER WAS ANY "PRO TORTURE" attitudes to be FOR in the first place. I was all a bunch of lies and, quite frankly - BULLSHIT , made up by those who hate Bush, hate America, and echoed in the biased Left wing MSM. That's the hard, cruel reality that so many of you folks are going to have to face, eventually.

Seems hard to believe at first, but it's the truth.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by chrisisall:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AURaptor:


THERE NEVER WAS ANY "PRO TORTURE" attitudes to be FOR in the first place. I was all a bunch of lies and, quite frankly - BULLSHIT , made up by those who hate Bush

---

Better put on some lipstick if you're gonna be the Queen of Denial, bro.


The laughing Chrisisall

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by chrisisall:
'RAppo is visiting Fantasy Island now, Cit. Best leave him be.


The laughing Chrisisall

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AURaptor:
Heh... Southpark, the Movie. Funny! But the analogy of cut out cartoon figures on film as being anything remotely close to 'real' is famously appropriate.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AURaptor:

Dude, just admit defeat, gather your bra and panties, and call it a day.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AURaptor:
..and how is collecting your bra and panties in the least bit derogatory ? Unless YOU deem it to be so ?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by citizen:
I was going to ask you to leave bestiality out of it.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by citizen:
I was going to ask you to leave bestiality out of it.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by chrisisall:
Oh, gosh, are we going THERE, Au? *yawn*

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AURaptor:

You already went there, I just followed.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AURaptor:
Yeah, nice try.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by chrisisall:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AURaptor:

Does this not give you one moment for pause ? Maybe, that if even if Mr Obamarrific himself won't pursue charges on the issue of torture, that maybe, JUST maybe, Bush and Cheney weren't as evil as the Left had tried to paint?

---

No, Mr. Genius, it means that Obama is playing the Washington Game by the rules.

---

Quote:

---

What's to like ? There's a REASON why he's carrying on , just like Bush, on this matter. While Mr Obamarrific has no problems making SWEEPING changes in most other areas of Government, he's sorta changed his tune on such matters on how to treat terrorist. Sure, we might not call them that any more, but we'll sure TREAT them the same.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AURaptor:
No, you only think you did. But just like Obama agreeing w/ Bush on the matter of "torture" ( there was none ) , you are WRONG.

---

Quote:

---

Man, I hope they tap the phones of all of those right-wing nut-jobs who "thought" that breach of rights would only apply to "others"... and then land them in some distant foreign country's jail where they will be detained without charges while being "aggressively interrogated". Maybe they'll come out with a greater appreciation for what "rule of law" means.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by asarian:

Waterboarding, while reprehensible, was considered legal under, and sanctioned by, Bush and his administration. So, to go after these folks who did the actual boarding inevitably means also prosecuting way up the chain (as their attorneys will no doubt say their actions were approved by the brass). And I rightfully think that's not feasible; not politically, at least. So, the gnashing of my teeth despite, seems you Republicans got a few freebies.

---

Quote:

---

if CIA operatives were found to have EXCEEDED the subject memos they WILL be prosecuted.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Kwicko:


Yup - when they take a few of those right-wing extremists they're on the lookout for, and torture them, I'm sure 'Rappy the Wonder Dog will still see no problem there. Until they come for him, of course.

Mike

---

Quote:

---

Your irrational anger and pointless hatred has clearly unhinged you.

---

Quote:

---

Meanwhile, MILLIONS of Americans who really are freedom loving believers in the U.S. constitution are now targeted by the Government in a PURELY political move, and you folks think that turn about is fair play, or that this is even remotely o.k. ?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AURaptor:
I've been insult free for a while now, even in the face of some of the most ridiculous and mindless vile hurled my way

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AURaptor:
MILLIONS of Americans who really are freedom loving believers in the U.S. constitution are now targeted by the Government in a PURELY political move, and you folks think that turn about is fair play, or that this is even remotely o.k. ?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AURaptor:
until you offer any proof, or any Dept. fo Homeland Security type memos which targeted LEFT wing 'radicals' as the Right was , then you have nothing but your irrational fear paranoia and hatred for Bush on your side.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by chrisisall:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AURaptor:
MILLIONS of Americans who really are freedom loving believers in the U.S. constitution are now targeted by the Government in a PURELY political move, and you folks think that turn about is fair play, or that this is even remotely o.k. ?

---

So what? Their wasting time & money on different political targets, what's so new? That's what governments are for, NO?


The laughing Chrisisall

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by chrisisall:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AURaptor:
until you offer any proof, or any Dept. fo Homeland Security type memos which targeted LEFT wing 'radicals' as the Right was , then you have nothing but your irrational fear paranoia and hatred for Bush on your side.

---

Waste of time. No proof is enough for you, sir.
Enjoy caring nothing.


The laughing Chrisisall

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AURaptor:


So, you equate al Qaeda and Muslim funded terrorist wanting to blow up malls, tunnels, large sky scrapers to folks who are upset about illegal immigration?

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by AURaptor:


Hey dickhead, I said ANY proof.

---