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These new reports, dated June 1, 2005 and July 12, 2005, contain some different information than the previously released report, dated June 3, 2005. Notably, the June 1, 2005 report concludes that "Detainee reporting accounts for more than half of all HUMINT reporting on al-Qa'ida since the program began..." This fact is missing from the other two later reports..... .....n March 31, 2009, Vice President Cheney personally issued a request to the National Archives Presidential Libraries section for declassification review of the June 1, 2005 and another detainee program report. The Archives then passed on the request to the CIA...

Vindication of the effectiveness of Warfare over Lawfare, and a triumph for the Terrorist Surveillance Program.The ambivelent news is that The UK recently managed to convict a group of three terrorists for attempted terrorism: Airline terror trial: The bomb plot to kill 10,000 people Three British Muslims have been convicted of planning a series of co-ordinated suicide bomb attacks on transatlantic airliners, which could have killed up to 10,000 people. By Duncan Gardham, Security Correspondent Telegraph.co.ukThe al-Qaeda cell plotted to cause mass murder by detonating home-made liquid explosives on board at least seven passenger flights bound for the US and...

(CNN) -- Could George W. Bush or some of his top aides end up behind bars? It's extremely unlikely, but the Obama administration is taking its first steps along a path that could lead in that direction, with the investigation of Central Intelligence Agency interrogators involved in the war on terror. "You don't know where these things are going to end up," former CIA agent Peter Brookes told me. "They could go to very high levels in the government." The probe will focus on whether interrogators exceeded their instructions and broke the law when, for example, they choked a prisoner...

Here is video of Laura Ingraham in for Bill O'Reilly talking with Democratic Strategist Keith Watters about a new DNC ad that attacks Dick Cheney and "enhanced interrogation techniques." When asked about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and what is "permissible" to do with him if interrogation is not, Watters said "if someone has broken the law, they should be held accountable" as if Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is just a common criminal. Ingraham pointed out that he was not just a common criminal but had a key part in the attacks of Sept. 11 and asked Watters "you didn't consider that an...

WASHINGTON -- It’s no surprise that former Vice President Dick Cheney is opposed to the Justice Department’s decision to investigate the torture of prisoners during the Bush-Cheney administration. After all, Cheney has acknowledged that he was "aware" of waterboarding (simulated drowning) of detainees to get them to talk. It’s fair speculation that the orders for this method of torture came from on high. And in the Bush-Cheney administration, no one was higher than the vice president. Cheney has blasted Attorney General Eric Holder’s appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate abuse of prisoners. The duty fell to veteran Connecticut lawyer...

Ex-CIA operative: 'We're not going to go to prison for protecting this nation'

Republican Senator John McCain has denounced the use of torture on terrorism suspects during the administration of former president George W. Bush. "I think the interrogations were in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the convention against torture that we ratified under President Reagan," said McCain. In an interview with CBS News on Sunday, the Arizona senator said that the enhanced interrogation techniques also helped al Qaeda recruit additional members. "I think these interrogations, once publicized, helped al Qaeda recruit. I got that from an al Qaeda operative in a prison camp in Iraq,” said McCain, who added that he...

On a Saturday morning in late August, while country was away on summer vacation and those who closely watch politics were watching Ted Kennedy's funeral, the Washington Post quietly hung up the mainstream media's white flag on the CIA's harsh interrogation tactics. It turns out, they work — who knew? Fortunately, Steve Hayes has stayed on the case and, at the Standard's blog, he's got the story about the story — along with excerpts from the essential report by FDD's Tom Joscelyn (also in the Standard, here) relating the effectiveness of the CIA program and an important op-ed by FDD's...

If you are wondering what Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow are going to be spending the week talking about now that the Kennedy memorial is over, get over to Foxnews.com and watch former Vice President Dick Cheney’s blockbuster interview with Chris Wallace. In an extraordinarily blunt, straightforward—and witty—interview, the former Vice President gives his unvarnished, no-holds-barred opinion on the revelation this week that Attorney General Eric Holder was beginning a criminal probe of CIA interrogators, and the implications it has for national security. While Cheney is composed and relaxed throughout, there is little doubt that his outrage at...

After pledging during last year's presidential campaign, and as recently as the spring, not to re-visit the past, the Obama administration, in the person of Attorney General Eric Holder, has named a special prosecutor to go after CIA interrogators who pried information from terrorist suspects, preventing more deadly assaults on the country. Before the hard Left assumed power, anyone engaged in protecting America by interrupting terrorist plans might have expected to receive a commendation. Now they could face jail time. And somewhere in a cave in Pakistan, Osama bin Laden rejoices. By any objective standard, releasing terrorists from prison and...

<p>WALLACE: Mr. Vice President, welcome back to "FOX News Sunday."</p> <p>CHENEY: It's good to be back, Chris.</p> <p>WALLACE: This is your first interview since Attorney General Holder named a prosecutor to investigate possible CIA abuses of terror detainees. What do you think of that decision? CHENEY: I think it's a terrible decision. President Obama made the announcement some weeks ago that this would not happen, that his administration would not go back and look at or try to prosecute CIA personnel.</p>

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator John McCain, a torture survivor from his days as a captive during the Vietnam War, says his private comments about harsh interrogation methods were misrepresented by the Bush Administration in a recently released legal document intended to justify a six-day-long course of sleep deprivation for one CIA detainee in November of 2007. The newly declassified memo by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel mentions a secret briefing McCain and other members of Congress received sometime before October 17, 2006. The memo says the lawmakers were told about six CIA interrogation techniques, including prolonged sleep deprivation....

Early in 2002, Eric Holder, then a former deputy attorney general, said on CNN that the detainees being held at Guantánamo Bay were “not, in fact, people entitled to the protection of the Geneva Convention,” particularly “given the way in which they have conducted themselves.” Six years later, declaring that “Guantánamo Bay is an international embarrassment,” Mr. Holder said, “I never thought I would see the day when ... the Supreme Court would have to order the president of the United States to treat detainees in accordance with the Geneva Convention.” So what changed? A lot of things, of course,...

When he served as deputy attorney general, now Attorney General Eric Holder gave a "neutral leaning positive" recommendation that led to President Bill Clinton's pardoning of gazillionaire fugitive Marc Rich, who was on the lam in Switzerland hiding from federal charges of fraud, evading more than $48 million in taxes, racketeering and trading oil with Iran in violation of a U.S. embargo. Holder also had a role in the 1999 Clinton pardons of 16 Puerto Rico independence terrorists -- members of the bomb-happy FALN or the splinter group Los Macheteros -- who had been convicted on such charges as bank...

"Men sleep peacefully in their beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." George Orwell's truth comes to mind as one reads that Eric Holder has named a special prosecutor to go after the "rough men" who, to keep us sleeping peacefully at night, allegedly went too far in frightening Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, engineer of the September 2001 massacres. Yet, it seems now indisputable that those CIA interrogators, with their rough methods, got vital intelligence that saved American lives, as Dick Cheney has consistently contended. According to The Washington Times, which reviewed the newly...

Flashback to 9/11 and imagine the reaction if George Bush stood with the firemen amid the smoldering ruins and said the United States government will prosecute CIA interrogators for blowing cigar smoke in the face of the terrorist masterminds. The Bush administration would have been overthrown by the Honduran military. Seven years later and all common sense seems to be going up in smoke. Long gone are the images of Green Berets on horseback. Ranches, action heroes, and slap shots are out. Social media massages are in. The quitters can eat a hockey puck. The White House is white, not...

In 2005 and 2006, the bearded, pudgy man who calls himself the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks discussed a wide variety of subjects, including Greek philosophy and al-Qaeda dogma. In one instance, he scolded a listener for poor note-taking and his inability to recall details of an earlier lecture. Speaking in English, Mohammed "seemed to relish the opportunity, sometimes for hours on end, to discuss the inner workings of al-Qaeda and the group's plans, ideology and operatives," said one of two sources who described the sessions, speaking on the condition of anonymity because much information about detainee confinement...

After enduring the CIA's harshest interrogation methods and spending more than a year in the agency's secret prisons, Khalid Sheik Mohammed stood before U.S. intelligence officers in a makeshift lecture hall, leading what they called "terrorist tutorials." In 2005 and 2006, the bearded, pudgy man who calls himself the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks discussed a wide variety of subjects, including Greek philosophy and al-Qaeda dogma. In one instance, he scolded a listener for poor note-taking and his inability to recall details of an earlier lecture. Speaking in English, Mohammed "seemed to relish the opportunity, sometimes for hours...

On March 1, 2003, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), the principal planner of the September 11 attacks, was captured in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. U.S. interrogators quickly went about the business of getting him to talk, and for good reasons. KSM's operatives were already here, inside America, planning attacks. Shortly after KSM was detained, an Ohio-based truck driver named Iyman Faris was arrested by the FBI. Faris had reportedly been under suspicion beforehand, but U.S. authorities suddenly determined that they had to arrest him. It turned out that Faris, an al Qaeda-trained sleeper agent, had been dispatched to the United States by KSM...

Former Vice President Dick Cheney on Friday said the Obama administration should be debriefing CIA interrogators about keeping the country safe rather than trying to punish them for doing their jobs. In an exclusive interview taped to air this weekend on "FOX News Sunday," Cheney called the Justice Department probe of interrogators an "outrageous political act" that will do long-term damage to the United States' capacity to protect the country. "We had a track record now of eight years of defending the nation against any further mass casualty attacks from al Qaeda. The approach of the Obama administration should be...

A Thought Experiment: You walk into your home to find an armed intruder threatening to shoot your spouse and children, trapped with nowhere to run. Fortunately, you have a gun. You try to negotiate, but the intruder is in no mood to talk. His intention is murder. You have seconds to decide. What do you do? For many, the answer is clear. You fight to save your family. And most of us would call that self defense. Most Christians would agree that any action would be not only morally permissible, but also morally required. Now imagine another scenario: You are...

Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri, according to the 9-11 commission report, was the mastermind of the Oct. 12, 2000, attack on the U.S.S. Cole that killed 17 U.S. sailors. Nashiri was also the target of an "unauthorized" CIA interrogation technique (that had not been legally vetted by the Justice Department) that is described in a May 7, 2004, CIA inspector general's report that was partially declassified by the Obama administration this week. CIA officers blew smoke in Nashiri's face, according to the report, and they used cigars. The IG's office described this smoke-blowing as one of several "unauthorized or undocumented techniques"...

On Monday the Obama administration released a 2004 CIA inspector general's report on the agency's detention and interrogation program. Yesterday, the New York Times reported some gruesome abuses on its front page, above the fold: "Excessive physical force was routinely used, resulting in broken bones, shattered teeth, concussions, and dozens of other serious injuries over a period of less than two years, a federal investigation has found. . . . [D]espite rules allowing force only as a last resort. 'Staff at the facilities routinely used uncontrolled, unsafe applications of force, departing from generally accepted standards,' said the report." Actually, these...

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration will continue the Bush administration’s practice of sending terrorism suspects to third countries for detention and interrogation, but pledges to closely monitor their treatment to ensure that they are not tortured, administration officials said Monday. Human rights advocates condemned the decision, saying that continuing the practice, known as rendition, would still allow the transfer of prisoners to countries with a history of torture. They said that promises from other countries of humane treatment, called “diplomatic assurances,” were no protection against abuse. “It is extremely disappointing that the Obama administration is continuing the Bush administration practice...

"Sleep deprivation, "insult slaps," water dousing and "walling," or slamming a detainee's head against a wall, were techniques used by CIA interrogators to break high-value detainees, according to an agency memo." Holder decision "promises political headaches for President Barack Obama, came after the Justice Department's ethics watchdog recommended considering prosecution of CIA employees or contractors for interrogations in Iraq and Afghanistan that went beyond approved limits." Cheney said ""The people involved deserve our gratitude. They do not deserve to be the targets of political investigations or prosecutions," he said in a statement."

The Obama administration's war on the CIA continued in force this week. The result may be prosecution of CIA interrogators who work to uncover threats to national security. This witch hunt does not make America safer. Ignoring strong objections from CIA Director Leon E. Panetta, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. appointed special prosecutor John H. Durham to examine the potential for criminal charges against CIA interrogators. The administration also declassified a 2004 report by the CIA's inspector general detailing interrogation techniques that may have crossed the line. A source in the intelligence community told us those CIA operatives who...

WASHINGTON -- An internal CIA report made public yesterday says the agency's heavily criticized interrogation techniques led to the 2003 arrest of a Columbus truck driver who pleaded guilty to providing assistance to al-Qaida. The 2004 report, released following an order by a federal judge, asserted that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, provided CIA interrogators with information that "led to the investigation and prosecution'' of Iyman Faris, a native of Pakistan who was living in Columbus. Faris, 39, is serving a 20-year sentence after admitting he had scouted the Brooklyn Bridge in 2002 as...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 25 (UPI) -- Recently released documents show harsh questioning of suspected terrorists provided significant information on al-Qaida, former Vice President Dick Cheney said. Cheney released a written statement on the documents that became public Monday, including a 2004 report from the CIA inspector general, CNN reported. “The documents released Monday clearly demonstrated the individuals subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques provided the bulk of intelligence we gained about al-Qaida,” Cheney said. “This intelligence saved lives and prevented terrorist attacks.”

Report Shows Tight C.I.A. Control on Interrogations By SCOTT SHANE and MARK MAZZETTI WASHINGTON — Two 17-watt fluorescent-tube bulbs — no more, no less — illuminated each cell, 24 hours a day. White noise played constantly but was never to exceed 79 decibels. A prisoner could be doused with 41-degree water but for only 20 minutes at a stretch. The Central Intelligence Agency’s secret interrogation program operated under strict rules, and the rules were dictated from Washington with the painstaking, eye-glazing detail beloved by any bureaucracy. The first news reports this week about hundreds of pages of newly released documents...

ABC's Brian Ross and NBC's Andrea Mitchell on Tuesday night each listed some al Qaeda plots uncovered via CIA interrogations, but both balked when it came to vindicating former Vice President Dick Cheney on whether “enhanced interrogation techniques” (EITs) led to information which prevented attacks. “Nowhere in the reports...does the CIA ever draw a direct connection between the valuable information and the specific use of harsh tactics,” Ross declared on World News in citing reports Cheney requested be released. NBC's Andrea Mitchell cited only Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and related how “administration officials say there is no way to know whether...

A "furious" Rep. Peter King, the hawkish, maverick Long Island Republican, blasted a "disgraceful" Eric Holder for opening an investigation of CIA interrogators and chided his own party for what he described as a weak response to the move in an interview just now with POLITICO. "It’s bulls***. It’s disgraceful. You wonder which side they’re on," he said of the attorney general's move, which he described as a "declaration of war against the CIA, and against common sense." "It’s a total breach of faith, and either the president is intentionally caving to the left wing of his party or he’s...

President Obama has decreed that from now on terrorists, after their interrogation, are to be released and given a "cash for klunkers" trade in so they can drive home. Below is a picture of the U.S. Navy complying with Obama's new order. This would be a good idea.

I’m linking to a couple of other blogs concerning the document dump and the attorney general’s announcement that an independent investigator will be looking into alleged criminal activities during the interrogation of terrorists. Sorry -- will be kind of busy for the rest of the week, but here is some reading for you.

There are three reasons for President Barack Husein Obama’s decision to take a late-summer vacation this week: 1. There’s the damage he did to his popularity by trying – and failing – to convince us that we need ObamaCare (ie, socialized medicine). Obama’s popularity rating has taken a major hit. 2. There’s also the president’s forced revision of the projected 10-year debt America faces as a result of his Porkulus Bill. Obama & Co. tried to convince us our debt would swell no higher than seven trillion dollars, but the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) knew better and now estimates the...

It is amusing to see media outlets display shock over the Obama Justice Department's announcement regarding an appointment of a prosecutor to probe CIA interrogation tactics. Back in 2008, I blogged at Newsbusters that Mr. Obama told a radio interviewer that his Attorney General would investigate Bush Executive Orders. Naked Emperor News first uncovered the the 2007 KJFK radio interview between then Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and host Christiane Brown. Here's an excerpt(emphasis is mine:)

Here is video from this morning of Joe Scarborough on MSNBC's Morning Joe saying he believes it is a disaster for President Obama to have announced that a special team has been set up to do interrogations of terror suspects that will operate under White House and not CIA control. Scarborough mocked the fact this team will reportedly not use "sleep deprivation" any longer in interrogations. Scarborough said that would play well in "San Francisco" and other elitist neighborhoods, but to average Americans they are thinking, "My God, the do that (sleep deprivation) in fraternities." Scarborough says he believes most...

"Elections have their consequences." In countries without the democratic tradition of ours, those consequences may include putting the former leaders in jail, or worse. But that has never been the tradition in the US. The history of America has been that those consequences have been political, a change in policy, appointment of advisers who were hated by the old regime, etc. That has not been the Obama way. Since his election, Obama and his team have attempted to appease their political left by publicly denouncing the Bush Administration's national security policies which kept us save, even as they claimed the...

WASHINGTON (CNN) – A prominent Democratic strategist said Monday that the Justice Department probe of CIA interrogations during President George W. Bush's administration may turn into a political liability for President Obama. "This is terrible politics for the Obama administration and the Democrats," James Carville, a Democratic strategist and CNN political contributor, said Monday in an interview on 'The Situation Room.' "The country – like – really doesn't want this." But, Carville added that the decision to open the probe into Bush-era interrogations of terrorism suspects is being driven by a belief that "we are a nation of laws." Ed...

CIA interrogator threatened to kill children of September 11 mastermind A CIA interrogator threatened to kill the children of the September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed if al-Qa'eda attacked the US again. Alex Spillius in Washington 24 Aug 2009 A CIA interrogator threatened to kill the children of the the September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed if al-Qa'eda attacked the US again, according to a declassified report. Photo: AP A newly declassified report, released by the US justice department, said that one interrogator had said a colleague told the al-Qaeda terrorist that if any other attacks happened in the US,...

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration launched a criminal investigation Monday into harsh questioning of detainees during President George W. Bush's war on terrorism, revealing CIA interrogators' threats to kill one suspect's children and to force another to watch his mother sexually assaulted. At the same time, President Barack Obama ordered changes in future interrogations, bringing in other agencies besides the CIA under the direction of the FBI and supervised by his own national security adviser.

The sad part in the news tonight that the interrogation techniques used on al-Qaeda DID, in fact, result in the disruption of our enemies attacks against the United States and the capture of many members of AQ is the fact that these techniques will no longer be used. Meaning.....it's a waiting game until the next successful attack: A redacted version of the CIA Inspector General Report on the CIA interrogation program was released today. Media coverage seems to imply that CIA interrogators were constantly going beyond programmatic guidance, where the IG Report found the reality to be that “there were...

Former Vice President Dick Cheney released a statement Monday night about the CIA documents and the coming Justice Department investigation. The documents released Monday clearly demonstrate that the individuals subjected to Enhanced Interrogation Techniques provided the bulk of intelligence we gained about al Qaeda. This intelligence saved lives and prevented terrorist attacks. These detainees also, according to the documents, played a role in nearly every capture of al Qaeda members and associates since 2002. The activities of the CIA in carrying out the policies of the Bush Administration were directly responsible for defeating all efforts by al Qaeda to launch...

The Justice Department's ethics office had recommended pursuing alleged prisoner-abuse cases, which could expose CIA employees and contractors to prosecution for their treatment of terror suspects. DEVELOPING After months of consideration, Attorney General Eric Holder plans to appoint a special prosecutor to examine allegations that terror suspects were abused at the hands of their CIA interrogators. The decision, confirmed by FOX News, comes as the Department of Justice releases a 2004 report from the CIA's inspector general detailing allegations of harsh interrogation practices. Several details in the review had already been reported. FOX News confirmed over the weekend that the...

A newly declassified CIA report says interrogators threatened to kill the children of a Sept. 11 suspect. The document, released Monday by the Justice Department, says one interrogator said a colleague had told Khalid Sheikh Mohammed that if any other attacks happened in the United States, "We're going to kill your children." Another interrogator allegedly tried to convince a different terror suspect detainee that his mother would be sexually assaulted in front of him—though the interrogator in question denied making such a threat. The report, written in 2004, examined CIA treatment of terror detainees following the terror attacks of Sept....

WASHINGTON – CIA interrogators threatened to kill the children of one detainee at the height of the Bush administration's war on terror and implied that another's mother would be sexually assaulted, newly declassified documents revealed Monday as the government launched a criminal investigation into the spy agency's "unauthorized, improvised, inhumane" practices. At the same time, the Obama administration announced a new policy for future interrogations — under White House supervision. With the release of the five-year-old CIA documents, the Justice Department began a probe into the spy agency's tactics, under the direction of a veteran prosecutor who has been looking...

WASHINGTON -- A Justice Department official says Attorney General Eric Holder has picked prosecutor John Durham to investigate CIA mistreatment of terror suspects. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to disclose the decision. Durham is already investigating the destruction of videotapes of CIA interrogations, and now will examine whether CIA officers or contractors broke laws in rough handling of suspects.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has decided to appoint a prosecutor to examine nearly a dozen cases in which CIA interrogators and contractors may have violated anti-torture laws and other statutes when they allegedly threatened terrorism suspects, according to two sources familiar with the move. Word of Holder's decision comes on the same day that the Obama administration will issue a 2004 report by the then-CIA Inspector General. Among other things, the IG questioned the effectiveness of harsh interrogation tactics that included simulated drowning and wall slamming. A federal judge in New York forced the administration to release the...

RAW DATA: Panetta Letter to CIA Staff on Release of Interrogation Report CIA Director Leon Panetta sent the following note to the agency's workforce Monday on the release of a report on interrogation practices. FOXNews.com Monday, August 24, 2009 Message from the Director: Release of Material on Past Detention Practices Today, as part of a number of Freedom of Information Act cases, the government is responding to court orders to release more documents related to the Agency's past detention and interrogation of foreign terrorists. The CIA materials include the 2004 report from our Office of Inspector General and two papers-one...

CIA interrogators used a handgun and an electric drill to try to frighten a captured al-Qaeda commander into giving up information, according to a long-concealed agency report due to be made public next week, former and current U.S. officials who have read the document said Friday. The tactics -- which one official described Friday as a threatened execution -- were used on Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, according to the CIA's inspector general's report on the agency's interrogation program. Nashiri, who was captured in November 2002 and held for four years in one of the CIA's "black site" prisons, ultimately became one...

WASHINGTON -- The CIA's internal investigator found that interrogators conducted mock executions of terror suspects and in one case threatened a detainee suspected in the USS Cole bombing with a gun and power drill, congressional officials said late Friday. The disclosure is contained in a 2004 report by the CIA's inspector general, which has keep secret and is to be released next week, two officials told The Associated Press. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the report has not yet been cleared for release. The report's findings were first reported by Newsweek on its Web site Friday night. In...