Cheney: I authorized torture. I guess, I'm guilty.

Bush: I authorized torture:




Alberto Gonzales on NPR today:

When asked by NPR's interviewer Michel Martin for his reaction to Barack Obama's Attorney General designate, Eric Holder, saying he believed waterboarding was torture, Gonzales said:

"My reaction was very similar to General (Michael) Mukasey's reaction, was concern about making a pronouncement like that, a concern that arise in the minds of intelligence officials and lawyers at the Department who all acted in good faith, working as hard as they can in difficult circumstances, to give advise and make decisions, to protect our country. And when you have that kind of pronouncement . . . One needs to be careful in making a blanket pronouncement like that if you don't have all the information because of the effect it may have again on the morale and dedication of intelligence officials and lawyers throughout the administration.

MARTIN: And you worry officers, persons who participated in these practices might be now prosecuted?

GONZALES: "I don't think there's going to be a prosecution, quite frankly, because again these activities for the most part, based on what I know, obviously there may be some activities and actions that occurred that I'm not aware of, but in terms of what people really focused on, they were authorized, they were known at the highest levels, they were supported by legal opinions at the Department of Justice, so based on those facts, I think it would be difficult, again I can't prejudge it, Mr. Holder if he is confirmed will have to make a decision whether or not to move forward with a prosecution, an investigation and a prosecution but under those circumstances I find it hard to believe . . . "

Gonzo seems real concerned Holder may have made his pronouncement about waterboarding being torture without all the relevant info regarding the threats he was facing and the legal opinions authorizing the use of torture (which were, remember, authorized at the highest levels).

Well, it looks like the Obama administration and congressional democrats might be able to help to enlighten everyone:

consortiumnews.com reports congressional democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee are ramping up an effort to begin investigations into what exactly BushCo was up to on the Dark Side. And also:

"Obama’s aides have indicated that there soon may be a 'public airing' of secret Justice Department legal opinions and other documents that provided the underpinning for the Bush administration’s brutal interrogation policies . . ."

The Republicans are now apparently holding up Holder's confirmation until he promises not to prosecute any of them.

"Meanwhile, Republicans have grown increasingly worried that Holder, as Attorney General, will launch a criminal investigation into Bush’s interrogation policies. They delayed a vote on his nomination demanding that he respond to questions about whether he intends to investigate and/or prosecute Bush administration officials.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said he wants to ask Holder whether he intends to investigate the Bush administration and intelligence officials for torture. Last week, at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Holder was asked about the practice of waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning that the Bush administration has acknowledged using against three terror suspects. Holder answered that 'waterboarding was torture.'

Cornyn said Holder’s view means there is a possibility that investigations might be on the horizon. 'Part of my concern, frankly, relates to some of his statements at the hearing in regard to torture and what his intentions are with regard to intelligence personnel who were operating in good faith based upon their understanding of what the law was,' Cornyn said Wednesday."

That term "operating in good faith" seems to be coming up a lot, lately. It's like telling a cop you didn't know the speed limit. Gonzo can go on and on about how legal opinions, written by such constitutional experts as he and John Yoo, said the CIA could torture the worst of the worst, but just writing something doesn't make it so.

Right, John Yoo?

"Doug Cassel: If the President deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person’s child, there is no law that can stop him?

Yoo: No treaty.

Cassel: Also no law by Congress. That is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo.

Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that." (Information Clearinghouse)

The real scandal isn't so much waterboarding KSM and Co., it's the permissive environment his, Yoo's and Cheney's whole gloves coming off philosophy of criminal justice engendered all down the chain of command that led to all the horrors of Gitmo, Baghram and Abu-Ghraib.

WWIII just around the corner. Stay tuned.

That crazy Sy Hersh is at it again; this time claiming in the current edition of the New Yorker that W. & Co. have been given $400 million from the rubber stamp Congress to conduct mass covert operations inside Iran. The objective of these operations is supossedly to take-out or capture certain Iranians on a hit-list written by Cheney and to pay local dissidents, most of them terrorists, to blow things up and generally create enough chaos to provoke the regime into overreacting thus giving Cheney & Co. an excuse to intervene.

How nuts is that?

You know, I hear it said all over the place that Hersh has been saying the US is on the verge of attacking Iran for a long time, so why should we believe him now. After all, it's not like there's any evidence out there of any covert-like violence going on inside Iran, right?

Hersh writes:

"In recent months, according to the Iranian media, there has been a surge in violence in Iran; it is impossible at this early stage, however, to credit JSOC or C.I.A. activities, or to assess their impact on the Iranian leadership. The Iranian press reports are being carefully monitored by retired Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner, who has taught strategy at the National War College and now conducts war games centered on Iran for the federal government, think tanks, and universities. The Iranian press 'is very open in describing the killings going on inside the country,' Gardiner said. It is, he said, 'a controlled press, which makes it more important that it publishes these things. We begin to see inside the government.' He added, 'Hardly a day goes by now we don’t see a clash somewhere. There were three or four incidents over a recent weekend, and the Iranians are even naming the Revolutionary Guard officers who have been killed.'”

But Gardiner is just some disgruntled nut Hersh found, take it all with a grain of salt.

Whoopse!

RTE reports today:

"An explosion at a gas distribution company in a town near the Iranian capital has killed 15 people. The cause of the blast late yesterday was not immediately clear. The Iranian news agency Fars said a large number of gas canisters used in homes for cooking had exploded. The explosion occurred at a gas company in a suburb of Karaj, west of Tehran."

Our tax dollars busy at work.

Threats and counter-threats: Don't worry be happy!

In other developments regarding the impossibility of W. & Co. attempting to get another war on before they're forced to possibly turn things over to that Muslim lover Barack Obama:

Reuters reports that Revolutionary Guards commander-in-chief Mohammad Ali Jafari told Jam-e Jam newspaper 'in some of the toughest language Iran has used so far' that Iran would take control of shipping in the Strait of Hormuz if attacked.

"Naturally every country under attack by an enemy uses all its capacity and opportunities to confront the enemy," Jafari says.

This threat, along with the Shaul Mofaz threat to Iran -- and then the reply from Jafari, "This country (Israel) is completely within the range of the Islamic republic's missiles. Our missile power and capability are such that the Zionist regime, despite all its abilities, cannot confront it" --- is attributed in the press to the obscene price of a barrel of oil.

Oh, and then there was Iranian Brigadier General Mir-Faisal Baqerzadeh saying Iran would dig "some 320,000," graves [Ynet] for the invaders and you get the idea all is quiet on the Eastern Front.

[BTW, isn't this the very same Mohammad Ali Jafari the US tried to capture in Irbil, Kuridstan, in Jan. of 2007 and who later attended a conference (along with Condi Rice) on Iraq in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, four months later?]

The PMOI no longer a 'terrorist' group in UK: Coincidence?

In a totally unrelated news story:

The BBC reports:

"An Iranian opposition organisation is pushing to be legalised across the EU after being taken off the UK's list of alleged terrorist groups. The People's Mojahedin of Iran, also known as Mujaheddin-e-Khalq, has been legalised in the UK after winning an earlier court battle."

The People's Mujahadeen of Iran, aka the MEK, is still a terrorist group according to the United States:

"The State Department report on international terrorism for 2006 asserts that the
organization — and not just a radical element of the organization as the group asserts — was responsible for the alleged killing of seven American defense advisers to the former Shah in 1975-1976. The State Department report has, in the past, noted the group’s promotion of women in its ranks, but the report for 2006 emphasizes the group’s 'cult-like' character, including indoctrination of its members and separation of family members from its activists." [CRS]

Not that any of that would stop our Unitary Executive (kind of funny term when you realize we have two presidents) from doing business with anyone who'll play ball with us.

Sy Hersh:

"The M.E.K. has been on the State Department’s terrorist list for more than a decade, yet in recent years the group has received arms and intelligence, directly or indirectly, from the United States. Some of the newly authorized covert funds, the Pentagon consultant told me, may well end up in M.E.K. coffers. 'The new task force will work with the M.E.K. The Administration is desperate for results.' He added, 'The M.E.K. has no C.P.A. auditing the books, and its leaders are thought to have been lining their pockets for years. If people only knew what the M.E.K. is getting, and how much is going to its bank accounts—and yet it is almost useless for the purposes the Administration intends.'”

This is the same bunch that, according to ATC, had to basically rent a crowd to make it look like they had any kind of following at their big celebration in Paris this past weekend. Many interviewed by NPR had no idea who Massoud and Maryam Rajavi even were.

But, I'm sure the back channel to Cheney's lare is working overtime getting info on the vast throngs of supporters they have within Iran from the Ledeen/Ghorbanifar nexus and their agent in (Curt Weldon's Paris contact) code named "Ali." [LTAD]