A Pentagon study released last year, based on a review of 600,000 Iraqi documents captured after the U.S.-led invasion, concluded that while Saddam supported militant Palestinian groups — the late terrorist Abu Nidal found refuge in Baghdad, at least until Saddam had him killed — the Iraqi security services had no “direct operational link” with al Qaida.
600,000.
By investigation, however, it was found that the vast majority of Guantanamo detainees captured in 2001 and 2002 in Afghanistan and Pakistan were innocent citizens or low-level fighters of little intelligence value who were turned over to American officials for money or because of personal or political rivalries.
Vast majority.
The decision to withhold the documents was announced by the CIA, which said that it was obliged to do so by a 2003 executive order issued by former President George W. Bush prohibiting the release of materials that are the subject of lawsuits.
Our official policy was known to become the subject of lawsuits.
While allegedly being tortured by Egyptian authorities, Libi provided false information about Iraq’s links with al Qaida, which the Bush administration used despite doubts expressed by the DIA.
False information was used despite doubts expressed by the DIA.
The administration ignored warnings from experts in the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the State Department, the Department of Energy and other agencies, and used false or exaggerated intelligence supplied by Iraqi exile groups and others to help make its case for the 2003 invasion.
Ignored warnings from its own experts.
A bipartisan Senate Armed Services Committee report in December traced the abuses at Abu Ghraib to the approval of the techniques by senior Bush administration officials, including former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
Top officials approved of the humiliation of prisoners of war.
Cheney said that the Bush administration “moved decisively against the terrorists in their hideouts and their sanctuaries, and committed to using every asset to take down their networks.” The former vice president didn’t point out that Osama bin Laden and his chief lieutenant, Ayman al Zawahri, remain at large nearly eight years after 9-11 and that the Bush administration began diverting U.S. forces, intelligence assets, time and money to planning an invasion of Iraq before it finished the war in Afghanistan against al Qaida and the Taliban.
Resources were diverted from finding Osama towards invading Iraq.
A top-secret 2004 CIA inspector general’s investigation found no conclusive proof that information gained from aggressive interrogations helped thwart any “specific imminent attacks,” according to one of four top-secret Bush-era memos that the Justice Department released last month.
No proof interrogations kept America safe… they prolonged the war.
Bottom line…
Torture was sanctioned by Vice President Cheney so it could be used solely to offer credulity to the invasion of Iraq, where there was oil.
America invaded for oil… America tortured for oil, … Every dead American soldier coming back from Iraq, died for oil….
On Armed Forces Day, it would be wise to question whether our members of the American military deserve better.. As individual citizens of this great country, we must make sure that no other future leader misrepresents the American way and abuses our system for their own private gain, as did Dick Cheney
Now as private citizen, it is time that the articles of treason be filed on Dick Cheney, former Vice President of the United States…
After all, he is innocent until proven guilty, but at least the opportunity to hold him accountable, must be taken now. For if no one is ever held accountable, then what is to stop the madness from ever occurring again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and …..
Any person continuing to support private citizen Dick Cheney’s contention’s, should also be viewed as a suspect who is actively working against the best interests of all branches of the United States Armed Forces.
Happy Memorial Day.
kavips 
13 comments
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May 24, 2009 at 12:31 pm
kavips
Thanks to the McClatchy Report and to Delaware Liberal for steering me in that direction.
May 24, 2009 at 4:30 pm
Nancy Willing
Will Bunch has a great post on this as well, at Attytood.
May 25, 2009 at 12:18 pm
delawarerepublican
How many attacks have there been since 9/11?
None.
Case closed.
Mike Protack
PS- Obama talks a good game but he supports rendition, is expanding the Afghan War with US men and women and our tax dollars, after 4 months has no plans for GITMO and while N Korea and Iran march to nuclear capability Obama sticks to the flourishes of a teleprompter.
How many women and chidren did Harry Truman kill at Hirsohoma and Nagasaki? Did they ask to die? Were they not innocent?
May 26, 2009 at 5:11 am
kavips
Mike Protack… Republican
How many witches have been burned at the stake since 1693?
None.
Case closed…
Burning witches at the stake works.
Do you realise how stupid your argument even sounds? Cut it out! You are making our state look bad.
May 26, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Kilroy
Mike Protack
“How many women and chidren did Harry Truman kill at Hirsohoma and Nagasaki? Did they ask to die? Were they not innocent?’
Unbelievable !!!! Dam Mike how man innocent people died during the Pearl Harbor attack?
May 26, 2009 at 10:07 pm
david anderson
Considering your way gave us the embassy attacks, 9/11, the first WTC attacks, and other issues while the Bush way kept us safe 100% of the time for 7 years, Mike has a point.
Let’s get serious.
Did Iraq divert resources from Afghanistan? Yes. Were there a minority in the intelligence community who believed differently than the majority and the directors? Yes. Were they right? Yes. Were they suppressed? No, the Senate Intelligence Committee documents that. Did they have strong evidence that they were right? No, in fact documents from Saddam’s government which were recovered seem to indicate differently. It turned out that Saddam wanted us to believe that he had weapons. He did have programs in violation of the cease fire. He was in material breach. He attacked our forces over 400 times while they were fulfilling the UN mandate.
Was the war justified. Yes, the Congress voted almost 80% in favor. They saw the intelligence and caveats. Everyone made their best call. I think it was the best choice with the available facts.
May 27, 2009 at 4:50 am
kavips
David Anderson,
Refresh your memory.
Treating people with respect did not give us 9/11.. Instead it was an incompetent Republican president who just a month before, held the dossier that said “Bin Laden Determined to Attack US” and then did nothing about it, who is the sole reason we lost the Twin Towers and the Pentagon and over 2000 American citizens.
Your way. your party, and absolute Republican incompetence were the three causes of 9/11….
Plus you are dreaming again when you make attempts to justify the war simply because democrats voted for it as well… But you can be excused for such dreaming, …. After all, it is no wonder you do so, … considering the laughing stock your party has become right now… Were my party to ever become that disfuncitional, no doubt, I would be dreaming as well…
Bad intelligence.. or Falsified intelligence…. is why we went to war… If someone credible and supposedly trustworthy, tells us to shoot first, tells us that our opponent is aiming at us with his gun, tells us that we have no choice and we must shoot now, most of us will shoot having only a short time to make that life and death decision. We then find the target of our wrath was a 7 year old boy with a Happy Meal box in his hand…
What you are doing is exactly what those perpretrators above would be saying to the judge presiding over their trial… “Your Honor: Everyone else believed it, how on earth can you blame just us?”
We CAN blame you because your party invented the charge; your party looked for any supporting evidence that could possibly. if twisted in a certain way. support that charge; your party then twisted the evidence so that for a moment it did appear to support that charge; then your party lied about the plausibility that the charge (the one they invented in the first place) was credible, then your party proceeded to broadcast their erronious results as proven fact, and thereby created a mob mentality clamouring for us to storm into Iraq, for the sole reason that well connected members of your party could acquire the crude oil lying just on the surface across the Saudi border of the western desert of Iraq….
We went to war is solely because of Republican leadership. The war’s failure is solely Republican’s blame, if only because of the false pretenses they used to get us there….
5000 American soldiers have died because of Republican leadership. The Republican leadership are the ones who must be held accountable for their deaths to each one of their surviving families. Why? Simply because Republican leadership used false pretenses to get us there…
Our country fell apart solely, simply and only, because of Republican leadership…
David… old friend,
It’s time to wake up.
Either kick out those old fogeys who destroyed everything Ronald Reagan worked for, and thereby keep the word “Republican” vibrant, … or…. find a new party and let the Republican name wither on the vine, probably where it belongs, eventually joining ranks with words like “Whig”.
May 27, 2009 at 6:19 pm
Kilroy
Mike Protack
“How many women and chidren did Harry Truman kill at Hirsohoma and Nagasaki? Did they ask to die? Were they not innocent?”
So David you agree with Mike? Are you suggesting the United States destroy all their nuclear weapons even if the other countries don’t.
So you’re saying if the United State was nuked we just all pray to God?
May 31, 2009 at 9:12 am
kavips
The obvious degradation of the levels of intelligence underlying recent responses coming from recent Republican candidates have recently caused the DEA to begin its review of the amount of crack currently ingested by the Republican Party.
December 9, 2009 at 12:35 am
Tom
The fact remains that there is great circumstantial evidence that the treasonous act of “outing” one of our assets for political revenge occured through the Vice Presidents office. This is a serious charge and should be investigated to the fullest extent. The fact that it has not been investigated to ithe fullest extent should give us all a pause to consider where we are as a nation and where are the other branches of our government that were placed by our forfathers to ensure that this type of abuse of executive power would not lead us to the place we are now. Namely, teetering on facism. It is a backwards form of facism. Where as Nazi Germany and Italy took over the corporate power, it has been the opposite here in America. The corporations have been allowed to converge and encorporate their power through joining together in direct opposition to the “Sherman Anti-trust Act” by means of Ronald Reagan. It is time in America for another Teddy Roosevelt to smash the monopolies and robber barrons that are raping our citizenry for personal gain and profit! This lesson has been taught before! Are we so blind as to not see what is happening now? International mega-corporations that have absoluteley no allegiance to any country only persue profit and power to get more than they already have at the expense of every middle class citizen in America and elswhere! That is the definition of Facism!
Wake up people!
How much money do you think DICK Cheeney made through his deception and evil pursuits?
How many of our children have died needlessly for his distorted quest for power and money?
One life is too many!
How dare he go to the Pentagon to try to influence his point of view!
The audacity of this man goes beyond sick!
Manufacturing intelligence data to support his former company making billions of dollars at our childrens expense!
Outing one of our intelligence agents for revenge and surely costing lives of other assetts in the field for his own personal monetary gain and own ego.
This is exactly what our brilliant forfathers sought to prevent!
This kind of abuse of power!
So… What are you going to do about this?
What should we as patriots of this country do about this?
Do you know what the founding fathers said we should do in such a situation as this?
You better find out and we shall join together to correct the situation before it is too late!
December 9, 2009 at 1:34 pm
kavips
When confronted with corporate abuses of the Guilded Age, Americans took up arms. often around picket lines.
When confronted with the abuses of slavery caused by southern “corporate” economic issues, American too up arms… We fought a Civil War.
When confronted with the draft for a war in Southeast Asia, American’s took up arms…
In all, changes came about..
Perhaps this option needs to be reevaluated.
December 9, 2009 at 9:11 pm
Tom
I agree that American patriots need to take whatever action is necessary to take back our country “for the people”.
One huge problem is that a majority of American citizens are ignorant as to what is actually going on.
Most families are scrambling to just pay the bills and don’t have the time or interest to investigate the abuses being perpetuated on them.
I believe these abuses can be traced to creation of The Federal Reserve and it’s link to the International Monetary Fund.
We as patriots need to take to the streets and demand that “The Sherman Antitrust Act” be reactivated.
We need to establish again a manufacturing base that has been lost to India, China, Pakistan etc, etc.
Another big problem we face is the corporate control of a majority of the media pumping out its spin to the ill informed public.
Some people don’t care about the truth as long as they can persue life, liberty and the persuit of happiness. The sad thing is it is being taken away from them bit by bit without awareness. It is not only a sad trend, but could be tragic if we lose the ability to affect change in the system and many believe we are dangerously close to that moment.
A person interested in learning about where our country is today and how it arrived should read President Eisenhower’s farewell address to the country where he warns the citizens of warranted or unwarrented influence of the military industrial complex upon domestic and international policy. A fantastic book related to this is called “House of War” by James Carroll. It is one of the best reads ever about the rise of the power of the Pentagon.
My other recomendation would be to read “Ultimate Sacrifice” by Lamar Waldron and Thom Hartman. This is the most compelling and convincing explanation of President John F. Kennedy’s assasination that I have ever read and I’ve read most of them!
We need an informed citizenry in order to take the required action to correct the course of our nation. My prayer is that this will come to fruitation before it is too late and my fear is that we are running out of time!
Thanks for reading and caring about this very important situation our country is facing and I welcome any comments, views or other opinions!
December 11, 2009 at 2:12 am
kavips
I would stress that the Federal Reserve and IMF have very little impact on how things are run.. and they do fulfill a great service.. They keep banks from failing both here and abroad.
Bank failures were a common occurrence until these measures were put in place.. It would be wise to remember, that the smoothness of this current Great Depression, is because we learned from and acted upon, the lessons taught by the past Depression…
It would be also wise to remember that those institutions were debated and installed, exactly because the alternative to not having them, was far worse…
Without government intervention, the world would be a lot more miserable of a place… However, with most of the stuff you mention, I would agree with.