Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
My colleague Spencer Ackerman at the Washington Independent got his hands on those memos that Dick Cheney claims will vindicate the use of torture. Turns out....not so much.
Strikingly, they provide little evidence for Cheney's claims that the "enhanced interrogation" program run by the CIA provided valuable information. In fact, throughout both documents, many passages -- though several are incomplete and circumstantial, actually suggest the opposite of Cheney's contention: that non-abusive techniques actually helped elicit some of the most important information the documents cite in defending the value of the CIA's interrogations.
You can see the full documents here. Spencer provides some details on how inconclusive these memos are:
The first document, issued by the CIA in July 2004 is about the interrogation of 9/11 architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times in March 2003 and whom, the newly released CIA Inspector General report on torture details, had his children's lives threatened by an interrogator. None of that abuse is referred to in the publicly released version of the July 2004 document. Instead, we learn from the July 2004 document that not only did the man known as "KSM" largely provide intelligence about "historical plots" pulled off from al-Qaeda, a fair amount of the knowledge he imparted to his interrogators came from his "rolodex" -- that is, what intelligence experts call "pocket litter," or the telling documentation found on someone's person when captured. As well, traditional intelligence work appears to have done wonders -- including a fair amount of blundering on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's part:In response to questions about [al-Qaeda's] efforts to acquire [weapons of mass destruction], [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] revealed that he had met three individuals involved in [al-Qaeda's] program to produce anthrax. He appears to have calculated, incorrectly, that we had this information already, given that one of the three -- Yazid Sufaat -- had been in foreign custody for several months.
This is a far cry from torturing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed into revealing such information. It would be tendentious to believe that the torture didn't have any impact on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- he himself said that he lied to interrogators in order to get the torture to stop -- but the document itself doesn't attempt to present a case that the "enhanced interrogation" program was a factor, let alone the determinant factor, in the intelligence bounty the document says he provided.
He also argues separately that the confusion between interrogators and debriefers makes it even more difficult to separate out what information was obtained through normal interrogation techniques and what information was obtained through torture and abuse.
We already know from the testimony of FBI interrogator Ali Soufan that Abu Zubaydah gave actionable information using standard techniques but gave bad information by the ton once they started torturing him. And it seems rather obvious to me that if waterboarding actually did work, it would not be necessary to subject someone to it 183 times. The fact that they had to do it that many times is evidence that it didn't do a damn bit of good.
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One of the things that annoyed about this was that for all the bluster Cheney did on this documents, nobody told his ass to get in line with the rest of us and file a FOIA request. He could have released these when he was V.P. but opted not to and thus he can file a FOIA like the rest of us.
His request and he himself is no more special than the rest of us now, and he get in line and wait weeks and months like the rest of us.
Posted by: History Punk | August 25, 2009 9:42 AM
I would argue that the liberals in the media threw an interception when they first reported on the documents released yesterday.
The lead story last night from such venues should have been what Ed post here about, i.e., "Cheney's documentary claims torture worked were failed to be validated by those very documents, which were released today". (A journalistic version of this, sorry I'm not pithy).
Instead they reported on clearly illegal acts as if they were torture when I bet the majority of people would not see those acts as torture (threats, infrequent mind games). These acts alone, which was how they were reported - in isolation, will not garner any sympathy or support for an aggressive prosecution.
It's as if the Left wants to fail.
Posted by: Michael Heath | August 25, 2009 9:55 AM
I don't know about you "Michael Heath", but as I read the reports... Actually read them... I found them full of torture.
Illegal, and torturous.
Funny how that happens.
Posted by: Lettuce | August 25, 2009 10:23 AM
Is anyone really surprised that Cheney's full of shit? Hardly a surprise.
Let's ask him for the energy policy meeting minutes now since he's so open and forthcoming.
Posted by: MikeMa | August 25, 2009 10:25 AM
The fact that they had to do it that many times is evidence that it didn't do a damn bit of good.
You know what they say: (one-hundred-eighty-)third time's the charm!
Posted by: Raging Bee | August 25, 2009 10:41 AM
I would say that The DorkLordCheney, if he thinks these memos are somehown exculpatory, needs a fresh infusion of baby blood so that oxygen will get to his brain.
Posted by: democommie | August 25, 2009 10:41 AM
@ 3 - I wasn't referring to the contents of the memos. I was referring to how the stories about the contents were prioritized, framed, and the content of the stories reported. Whatever torture that was discovered that you read about was not reported last night at MSNBC. They instead focused on threats and ocassional, sometimes singular, mind games - clearly illegal and wrong, but not items that would be collectively agreed are torture. This is far different, at least as of yesterday, from previous reports that reported not only torture, but torture that was applied in a manner consistent with the President's directives and the legal justifications he used to justify his directives and his acts.
Let's hope the media recovers from yesterday's failures to report on items in a manner that will support more of the public getting behind aggressive criminal investigations into these acts.
Posted by: Michael Heath | August 25, 2009 10:53 AM
Bill O'Reily is reporting that the documents prove that torture works. Last night he actually said "And no other network will report this, but the last paragraph of the document tells us that the enhanced interrogation worked and saved American lives."
But I noticed that the paper he held up didn't look anything like the actual documents. He had something typed out neatly as if somebody retyped it for him. So how am I suppose to trust him when he says "these are the documents"?
And why doesn't the right seem to understand that it doesn't matter if it worked or not (and I think most of the evidence points towards "not"). Torture is wrong and the USA should not be the kind of country that tortures.
What O'Reily is really saying is : "You know all that freedom and due process and innocent until proven guilty stuff that makes America great? Well Fuck all of that. When it gets scary let's jsut throw it all away."
Courage is when you do the right thing when you're scared and you know that things may turn out badly for you. To toss our ideals out the window when things get rough is cowardness.
Posted by: GregB | August 25, 2009 11:09 AM
Michael Heath @ # 2: ... the liberals in the media threw an interception when they first reported on the documents ... It's as if the Left wants to fail.
There's an unjustified conflation of "liberals" and "media" in your thinking here.
Try, "It's as if the media wants the liberals to fail."
Voila - cognitive dissonance be gone!
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | August 25, 2009 11:46 AM
I would sure hate to be a captured American combatant in any future conflicts.
Posted by: Blondin | August 25, 2009 1:32 PM
@ 9 - I was talking specifically about MSNBC's, "The Ed Show", Matthews, and Olbermann. All have previously come out against torture yet their lead stories on this matter were as described previously.
I regret inferring all of liberal media, I should have instead stated MSNBC.
So no cognitive dissonance in evidence - there was intention to strengthen the Right's hand; merely an inaccurate description on my part regarding who I was referencing. My apologies for not being more accurate.
Posted by: Michael Heath | August 25, 2009 1:32 PM
Michael Heath @ # 11: I should have instead stated MSNBC.
As one who doesn't watch television, I'll have to take your word for it that MSNBC - or at least the three shows you named - can be defined as "liberal media".
My impression is that Matthews in particular subscribes to the point of view called "the village", most of which stays very carefully within what Chomsky calls "permissible thought" (a core premise of which is that the US is always benevolent and evidence to the contrary must be minimized as errors by lower-downs).
Needless to say, the urgently-required cleaning-by-sand-blaster in DC is not likely to come from those whose highest priority is acceptance within the village.
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | August 25, 2009 1:49 PM
This entire narrative is doubtful - what seems more likely is that Cheney and Rumsfeld created scenarios that they then told CIA interrogators to find evidence for - such as the anthrax story:
"FBI was told to blame Anthrax scare on Al Qaeda by White House officials"
BY JAMES GORDON MEEK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Saturday, August 2nd 2008, 6:32 PM
"WASHINGTON - In the immediate aftermath of the 2001 anthrax attacks, White House officials repeatedly pressed FBI Director Robert Mueller to prove it was a second-wave assault by Al Qaeda, but investigators ruled that out, the Daily News has learned..."
"They really wanted to blame somebody in the Middle East," the retired senior FBI official told The News.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2008/08/02/2008-08-02_fbi_was_told_to_blame_anthrax_scare_on_a.html
I bet the CIA was told to do the same as the FBI, and under torture people will admit to anything, won't they?
Posted by: C.C. | August 25, 2009 1:50 PM
Well, it matters if you are trying to answer the question "How well does it work?"
And it matters if you believe, as some do, that the torture of one man is morally imperative if it prevents the slaughter of thousands or millions.
Posted by: gingerbaker | August 25, 2009 4:02 PM
As far as I can tell from readings around here and elsewhere, under torture people will admit to anything as long as what they say is a lie. Evidently, torture only produces lies and false confessions, which makes me wonder why it is not marketed as the Perfect Reverse Barometer.
Posted by: gingerbaker | August 25, 2009 4:07 PM
Very slightly off-topic, but I keep remembering Pinochet, who got arrested in Britain, (on a Spanish warrent).
In theory, could those party to the torture of detainees be at risk of arrest if they ventured outside US controlled territory?
It certainly seems that the discussion has moved beyond "oh, it wasn't really torture". Not that most of the rest of the world cares whether or not your previous administration thought it was torture: I don't think that would be much of a defence.
Posted by: SimonG | August 25, 2009 5:51 PM
"In theory, could those party to the torture of detainees be at risk of arrest if they ventured outside US controlled territory?"
Wouldn't that be astounding to see Cheney en la calabasa in sunny Spain? Heh!
Posted by: Coragyps | August 25, 2009 7:34 PM
@Gingerbaker: Sooner or later a person under torture may lose track of what is real and what is a lie, and accidentally tell the truth (but you won't be able to tell).
And more importantly, if the interrogator hints something, the torturee is likely to agree - true or false. The issue there is that you get no information, since even if the person being tortured says something true, you won't know it.
Posted by: Michael Ralston | August 25, 2009 9:42 PM
You do realize that there's a long-standing rule in Republican politics that anyone holding up papers and saying "I have here in my hand ..." must be telling the truth, don't you?
Posted by: D. C. Sessions | August 25, 2009 9:56 PM
I wonder how much of the details of the torture was kept away from Bush? Kept away so he could say "we don't torture" even though it wasn't true?
Not that it matters much. Bush was still responsible even if he didn’t know about it.
Posted by: daedalus2u | August 26, 2009 7:16 AM