What WE’ve Done
In the days after 9/11, as the rubble in Manhattan smoked and the nation was in shock, Vice President Dick Cheney appeared on “Meet the Press.” Cheney was grim, and when moderator Tim Russert asked about the role of US intelligence in battling terrorism, he said the following:
You need to have on the payroll some very unsavory characters if, in fact, you’re going to be able to learn all that needs to be learned in order to forestall these kinds of activities. It is a mean, nasty, dangerous dirty business out there, and we have to operate in that arena. I’m convinced we can do it; we can do it successfully. But we need to make certain that we have not tied the hands, if you will, of our intelligence communities in terms of accomplishing their mission.
It was the first notice that the policy of the United States was changing. Cheney, and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, led an effort for a “no holds barred” approach to terrorists. “Black sites” were established by the CIA to hold and interrogate captured terrorists, kept outside of the United States for the specific purpose of avoiding the jurisdiction of US Courts. Guantanamo Naval Base was chosen as the “prison camp” for the same reason: avoiding US Court jurisdiction, and therefore the rights and protections of the Constitution.
In August of 2002 the “dirty business” was codified by a Justice Department finding on torture. The finding, authored by John Loo (now a law professor at University of California, Berkley) drew a distinction between “enhanced interrogation techniques” and torture as defined by the Geneva Convention. Loo argued that there was a difference between the “feeling” of extreme suffering and fear of death, and “actual” extreme suffering and fear of death. The finding was signed by Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee (now a Federal Appeals Court Judge.)
This then made waterboarding, feeding by “rectal infusion,” solitary confinement and long term forced nudity “legal.” In a specific case where a terrorist was known to have a fear of insects, the Justice Department:
“…advised the CIA that they could place the detainee in a box with an insect but that the CIA must ‘inform him that the insects will not have a sting that would produce death or severe pain.’”
The CIA conducted these “sessions” at the black sites. They also brought “contractors” in who had fewer restrictions, leading to the abuses at the Iraqi prison Abu Gharib where “enhanced interrogation” led to rape, sodomy and murder. Eleven soldiers were court martialed and sent to military prison and the commander demoted from general to colonel. No other senior officers or civilians in the Defense Department were held accountable, though it certainly played a part in Rumsfeld’s ultimate resignation.
Gina Haspel, a career clandestine CIA operative has been nominated to lead the agency. She has almost unanimous support of former CIA employees, and has had a distinguished career, rising through the ranks from a reports officer to station chief, clandestine site supervisor, Director of Clandestine Services, and Deputy Director of the CIA. She is widely regarded as incredibly competent.
It was during her oversight of the clandestine site in Thailand that she supervised the “enhanced interrogation” of terrorists. It was as Deputy Director of Clandestine Services that she signed an order authorizing the destruction of videotapes of those interrogations, tapes already subpoenaed by Congress and that showed hundreds of hours of torture. She did both of these actions on the orders of her superior officers at the CIA.
Haspel’s nomination is controversial. While she followed the orders of her superiors, Senators now are asking why she didn’t speak out against the torture that was going on under her command. They also are demanding why she was complicit in the destruction of the evidence of that torture. It’s appropriate for the Senators to ask these questions, but they are avoiding the bigger issue.
While Haspel’s nomination is in front of us, it isn’t fair to use her as the vehicle to confront this national shame. The “Nuremberg Defense,” (only following orders) is not acceptable, but it also is not acceptable to attack the “little fish” while letting the leaders go free. Torture is wrong now, it was wrong then, and it doesn’t work (ask John McCain.)
WE, the United States, have never held the “leaders” of the enhanced interrogation plan accountable. WE have convicted soldiers, and demoted officers; but Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, then CIA Director George Tenet and President George W Bush have avoided responsibility. And WE, Americans, are of mixed view as well. WE have not really confronted that in our moment of peril, WE were willing to allow these actions. Cheney made it clear from the week of the attack that WE would do anything. WE did.
