Think Progress:

This morning, the House Judiciary Committee voted to subpoena David Addington, Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, to compel him to testify about the administration’s interrogation programs. He has said he will agree to testify if subpoenaed. The AP also reports that John Yoo, author of legal memos that sanctioned torture, has reversed course and agreed last night to testify before the committee as well, along with Douglas Feith and former Attorney General John Ashcroft. Former CIA Director George Tenet “is still in negotiations with the committee, according to House Judiciary Committee spokeswoman Melanie Roussell.”

Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Addington, Haynes, Feith, Bybee, Yoo Behind Widespread Use of Torture

By Richard Norton-Taylor, The Guardian:

Update: Audio|Philippe Sands Interview

The US’s most senior general was “hoodwinked” by top Bush administration officials determined to push through aggressive interrogation techniques for terror suspects held at Guantánamo Bay, the Guardian can reveal.

The development led to the US military abandoning its age-old ban on the cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners.

General Richard Myers, the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff from 2001 to 2005, wrongly believed that inmates at Guantánamo and other prisons were protected by the Geneva conventions and from abuse tantamount to torture. (doh!)

The way he was duped by senior officials in Washington - who believed the Geneva conventions and other traditional safeguards were out of date - is disclosed in a devastating account of their role, extracts from which will be published in tomorrow’s Guardian.

In his new book, Torture Team, Philippe Sands QC, a professor of law at University College London, reveals:

Senior figures in the Bush administration pushed through previously outlawed measures with the help of unqualified and inexperienced military officials at Guantánamo.

Myers believes he was a victim of “intrigue” by top lawyers at the department of justice, the office of the vice president, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld’s defence department.

Myers wrongly believed interrogation techniques had been taken from the army’s field manual.

The lawyers who pushed through the interrogation techniques - all of them political appointees - were Alberto Gonzales, David Addingon and William Haynes.

Others involved were Doug Feith, Rumsfeld’s undersecretary for policy, and Jay Bybee and John Yoo, two assistant attorney generals.

The revelations have already sparked a fierce response in the US from those familiar with the contents of the book.

They are determined to establish accountability for the way the Bush administration violated international and domestic law by sanctioning prisoner abuse and torture.

The Bush administration has tried to explain away the ill-treatment of detainees at Guantánamo and the Abu Ghraib prison, in Baghdad, by blaming junior officials.

Sands establishes that pressure for the aggressive and cruel treatment of detainees came from the very top and was sanctioned by the most senior lawyers.

Myers, the most senior military officer of the most powerful country in the world, was one top official who did not understand the implications of what was being done.

Sands, who spent three hours with the former general, describes him as being “confused” about the decisions that were taken.

Myers did not realise that fundamental safeguards provided by the Geneva conventions and elsewhere were being abandoned by his own junior officers as well as political appointees in the administration, the author says.

He believed new techniques recommended by Haynes and authorised for use by the military at Guantánamo by Rumsfeld in December 2002 had been taken from the US army field manual.

However, none of the severe interrogation techniques came from the manual, and all breached established US military guidelines and rules.
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Host Borrin Onley explores issues of the day on “What’s the Point?”

In this episode, Borrin interviews Vice President Dick Cheney on the eve of the five year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. The Vice President may have been a little drunk. Borrin also interviews Scamron CEO Rich Whiteman about the bailout his corporation received from the federal government; and Borrin returns to the topic of prescription drugs in municipal water supplies with Science Correspondent Ira Frodo and FDA Commissioner Anton Le Yummy.

This program was recorded live at killradio on Tuesday, March 18, 2008, at 7:00 pm or so PST.

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We want to run this Impeachment Ad on Tuesday, April 29 in Roll Call, the Capitol Hill paper ALL members of Congress and their staffs read avidly.

Impeachment NOW will stop these high-crime precedents—cold!!

This 1/4th page ad emphasizes “Presidential Precedents” to Congress. But it
will cost $3,715 to appear in Roll Call. We need contribution NOW to cover
that cost so your Congressional Representative will see it on Tuesday, April 29.

Make your contribution two ways:

To give online send donation through Paypal to this email address: DemocracyforOregon@gmail.com

To give by check, make it payable to
Democracy for Oregon
6428 SE 15th Avenue
Portland, OR 97202.

The ad answers House Speaker Pelosi’s argument—echoed by many House
members (perhaps your Representative)—that President Bush and
Vice President Cheney will be out of office by January 30 “so why bother with
impeachment?”

If House members don’t “bother” with impeachment, they are permitting all the “high-crime precedents” that Nixon and Bush and Cheney have put in place to be used by future presidents. And those “Presidential Precedents” will nullify Congress, overthrow the Constitution and democracy—and set up a “unitary executive” dictatorship.

“We the People” National Coalition for Impeachment
For More Information, Click HERE

by BarbinMD, Daily Kos:

Earlier today, Dick Cheney called the war in Iraq a:

…successful endeavor … and it has been well worth the effort.

Today in Iraq:

• Five persons were killed and 12 others injured when mortar shells hit a football play ground in eastern Baghdad…
• A female suicide bomber attacked a group of Shiite worshippers near a mosque in Karbala on Monday, killing at least 39 people and wounding 51…
• A roadside bomb killed two U.S. soldiers when it struck their vehicle in a district north of Baghdad…
• A minibus packed with explosives killed three people and wounded eight others in Karrada district…
• A roadside bomb killed one policeman and wounded another as they patrolled Mansour district in western Baghdad…
• Three bodies of U.S.-backed neighbourhood police were found two days after they were kidnapped in the town of Udhaim…
• …police said they found the bodies of three members of a U.S.-allied group fighting al-Qaida in Udaim…
• A roadside bomb targeting a U.S. convoy injured four civilians in Baghdad…

Said Cheney:

It would be a mistake now to be so eager to draw down the force that we risk putting the outcome in jeopardy.

Well sure, we wouldn’t want to mess with all of this success.

The Raw Story:

Sen. John McCain stressed the importance of a U.S. commitment to Iraq during talks with Iraq’s prime minister Monday, and explosions struck Baghdad during twin visits by the presumptive Republican presidential nominee and Vice President Dick Cheney.

Helicopter gunships circled over central Baghdad and the heavily fortified Green Zone, but no details were immediately available on the cause of the explosions.

McCain, who has linked his political future to U.S. military success in Iraq, met Monday with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki shortly before the Iraqi leader began separate talks with Cheney.

Al-Maliki said he and the vice president discussed ongoing negotiations over a long-term security agreement between the two countries that would replace the U.N. mandate for foreign troops set to expire at the end of the year.

“This visit is very important. It is about the nature of the relations between the two countries, the future of those relations and the agreement in this respect,” the prime minister told reporters. “We also discussed the security in Iraq, the development of the economy and reconstruction and terrorism.”

McCain also said it was important to maintain the U.S. commitment in Iraq and warned that a U.S.-Iraqi military operation to clear al-Qaida from its last urban stronghold of Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, will be “very difficult and very important.”

McCain, who arrived in Iraq on Sunday, told reporters that he also discussed with the Shiite leader the need for progress on political reforms, including laws on holding provincial elections and the equitable distribution of Iraq’s oil riches.

The Arizona senator said he had reviewed the security situation in Baghdad with Iraqi officials.

He also visited the Anbar province city of Haditha on Sunday, drinking soft drinks from street vendors and answering questions about the U.S. presidential campaign to tout recent security gains ahead of the fifth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion.

Asked by one of the vendors if he would return to Iraq, McCain responded, “We’ll come back if I win.” Footage of the visit was distributed on a military Web site.

Cheney landed at Baghdad International Airport, then flew by helicopter for talks with U.S. and Iraqi officials. It is Cheney’s third vice presidential trip to Iraq where 160,000 American troops are deployed and the U.S. death toll is nearing 4,000.

The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad said it could not confirm reports of a rocket attack on the Green Zone after Cheney’s arrival. “I’m not aware of any,” embassy spokeswoman Mirembe Nantongo said.

Violence has dropped throughout the capital with an influx of some 30,000 additional U.S. soldiers as well as a Sunni revolt against al-Qaida and a cease-fire by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia. The U.S. military has said attacks have fallen by about 60 percent since last February.

McCain met with Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh on Sunday and planned to meet with Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, the U.S. Embassy said. Further details of the visit were not released for security reasons, the embassy said.

Before leaving the United States, McCain, who was making his eighth trip to Iraq, said the tour to the Middle East and Europe was for fact-finding purposes, not a campaign photo opportunity.

McCain, the senior Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, was accompanied by Sens. Joe Lieberman, an independent, and Republican Lindsey Graham, two top supporters of his presidential ambitions. The weeklong trip will take McCain to Israel, Britain and France.

In other violence Monday, police said they found the bodies of three members of a U.S.-allied group fighting al-Qaida in Udaim, 70 miles north of Baghdad. Members of the mostly Sunni groups have been increasingly targeted by suspected al-Qaida members seeking to derail the recent security gains.

A roadside bomb targeting a U.S. convoy injured four civilians in Baghdad, while a separate bombing in the capital’s Mansour neighborhood injured a policeman. Both were reported by police officials on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

Alternet:

Following nearly three days of intense media scrutiny, which has now led to Eliot Spitzer’s resignation, Democrats are asking a legitimate question: What about David Vitter…Dick Morris…Larry Craig…John McCain and for that matter Dick Cheney and George Bush?:

Karl Rove just added another Democratic scalp to his collection: Eliot Spitzer’s.

Spitzer has not been charged with any crime. He was railroaded by the Corporate Media, led by Rupert Murdoch’s NYPost and FOX News, with Karl Rove’s “loyal Bushies” leaking furiously from Bush’s InJustice Department.

So what’s the standard here? If hiring prostitutes is a disqualification for office, then David Vitter must resign today too. In fact, a good chunk of the men in politics must also resign (and possibly a few women as well). And a bunch of reporters and editors must quit as well. And pundits too - yes I’m talking ’bout you, Dick Toesucker Morris.

If adultery is the standard, then Larry Craig must resign today, along with half the men in politics and the media.

If hypocrisy is the standard, then everyone in politics and the media must resign today, because there isn’t one who isn’t a hypocrite in some large or small way. Take Saint John McCain on torture, campaign finance, immigration, Iraq, global warming, lobbyists… you name it.

And if a criminal violation is the standard, then George Bush and Dick Cheney should not only resign immediately, they should go before a firing squad for war crimes (invading Iraq and torture) and treason (outing Valerie Plame).

The so-called liberal media did not give Spitzer any easier treatment than a Republican would receive during the revelation of his prostitution scandal and unlike the Republicans who had the gall to applaud David Vitter when he acknowledged his infidelities with hookers, Democrats in New York and around the country were quick to recommend Spitzer take responsibility for his actions and step down. So why the double standard?

By Nick Julianoa Raw Story

Among the sixteen days for which email are missing from Vice President Cheney’s office is Sept. 30, 2003, the same day the day the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced they were investigating who outed former CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson.

That morning, then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales ordered the president and the vice president’s staff to “preserve all materials that might be relevant” to an inchoate Justice Department probe.

“We were informed last evening by the Department of Justice that it has opened an investigation into possible unauthorized disclosures concerning the identity of an undercover CIA employee,” Gonzales wrote in a terse Sep. 30, 2003 email. “The Department advised us that it will be sending a letter today instructing us to preserve all materials that might be relevant to its investigation. Its letter will provide more specific instructions on the materials in which it is interested, and we will communicate those instructions directly to you. In the meantime, you must preserve all materials that might in any way be related to the Department’s investigation.”

The analysis was released over the weekend by Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington (CREW), a D.C.-based ethics watchdog.

The White House said in a court filing last week that backup tapes, which contained archived copies of the e-mails, were recycled as part of a policy the White House had in place until October 2003.

Special Prosecutor and Chicago US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald convicted Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby of obstructing justice and lying to investigators last year. Fitzgerald noted in a January 2006 letter that some of the White House’s emails had not been archived.
Emails gone on day Bush said he’d ‘take care of’ leaker

Ironically, Cheney’s office is missing emails from the very day President Bush told reporters he’d “take care of” whatever staff member had actually leaked the CIA agent’s name.

“If there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is,” Bush said Sept. 30, 2003. “And if the person has violated the law, the person will be taken care of.”

The day before, then-White House press secretary Scott McClellan had said there was “nothing, absolutely nothing” to suggest any White House involvement.

“And that includes the vice president’s office, as well,” McClellan added.

Much remains to be learned about what happened to White House e-mails on 473 days for which they seem to have disappeared. A lawsuit brought by CREW and the National Security Archive and planned hearings from the House Oversight Committee are trying to find out just how much of the historical record of the Bush administration ended up in the White House recycling bin.

Cheney’s office also is missing e-mails from Oct. 4, 2003, when the Justice Department demanded that the White House turn over “all documents that relate in any way” to the leak of Plame’s identity. E-mails are also missing for the following day, during which the probe intensified and CIA director George Tenet found himself at the center of it, “caught between his loyalty to the president and defending an agency enraged” at Plame’s exposure, according to the New York Times.

As Fitzgerald’s probe continued over the next few years, emails continued to disappear, CREW says. More e-mails were missing from Cheney’s office on Feb. 16, 2005, when a court ordered reporters who had discussed Plame’s identity with administration officials to testify about those conversations.

All in all, some 473 days of emails are missing from various Administration departments, according to a House Democrat who saw a White House presentation on the files.

The Bush administration, in its last so-called Iraq “benchmark” report, used questionable financial data to assert that the Baghdad government was making progress in managing its budget, a new study says.

The study released Tuesday by the Government Accountability Office focused specifically on whether Iraqis were spending their capital budget, that is money for infrastructure needed to boost the country’s lagging economic growth and improve poor public services.

The administration reported in its September Iraqi benchmark assessment that Iraq’s central government ministries had spent 24 percent of their 2007 capital projects budget as of July 15, 2007. “This report is not consistent with Iraq’s official expenditure reports,” which show that the central ministries had spent only 4.4 percent of their investment budget as of August, the GAO said. It said capital projects are 90 percent of Iraq’s investment budget.

The benchmark report was ordered by Congress to measure Baghdad’s progress in 18 areas including political and economic activities. It was aimed at judging whether Iraqis were working hard enough at reconciliation and other issues to warrant continued American support.

The new GAO report said the administration number in the September assessment greatly exaggerated capital project spending partly because it had included money from 2006 as well as money that the Iraqis had committed themselves to spending but had not yet spent.

“We do not believe these data should be used to draw firm conclusions about whether the Iraqi government is making progress in executing its capital projects budget,” the GAO said of the administration’s figures.

Iraqis have been slow to execute their capital budgets partly because violence and sectarian strife has reduced the number of contractors willing to bid on projects. Also, their procurement and accounting systems are weak and many professionals and skilled workers have fled the country, the report noted.

Shown a draft of the study, U.S. Treasury Department and State Department officials said the GAO’s much lower figure had not counted capital spending put in other parts of the Iraqi budget. But they could not provide any documentation to verify that, GAO said.

The GAO recommended that Treasury work to improve it’s “ability to report accurate and reliable expenditure data from the ministries and provinces” in Iraq.

___

On the Net:

GAO report http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-08-153

Source: AP News

As the House Judiciary Committee continues to refuse any action on proposals to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney, three of that panel’s members tried to take their case to influential op-ed pages of the nation’s largest newspapers.They were turned down by every one — including the New York Times, Washington Post and Miami Herald — so now one of the lawmakers has taken his campaign to the Internet.

Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL) on Friday launched a new Web site, WexlerWantsHearings.com to advance his call to impeach Cheney. The site hosts an op-ed article censored by the nation’s major newspapers and outlines the case for impeaching Cheney.

“The truth is the mainstream media have no interest in this issue,” Wexler said Friday.

“They have bought into the notion that impeachment hearings are outside the bounds of what the congress ought to be doing,” the six-term Congressman elaborated during a conference call Friday.

The House Judiciary Committee has before it a resolution introduced by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) calling for Cheney’s impeachment and accusing the vice president of a raft of high crimes, including manipulating intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war, obstructing federal investigations and conspiring to expose the identity of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said impeachment in strictly off the table, and the Judiciary Committee seems unlikely to move forward with any hearings. Wexler encouraged impeachment supporters to sign a petition on his new site to allay the notions of Democratic leaders that impeachment supporters are little more than “a fringe, marginal group of people.”

Wexler said the House has the constitutional obligation to begin impeachment hearings to investigate malfeasance within the Bush administration, and he blamed the lack of enthusiasm thus far on the “bad taste” left by the GOP’s last impeachment crusade.

“People are just afraid that we would just be putting the shoe on the other foot and just doing … what the Republicans did to Bill Clinton,” Wexler told the conference call, which was organized by Democrats.com.

The “kangaroo court” Republicans used to impeach Clinton, on grounds that he lied about his liaison with an intern, cannot become the precedent by which the constitutional tool is judged, Wexler said.

Although Bush and Cheney will be leaving the White House for good in 13 months, Wexler said impeachment hearings were necessary because of the need to ferret out possible criminality in the administration.

“We have to follow the evidence where it leads,” he said. “We have an obligation to do it, and to do it as thoroughly as possible.”