http://www.alternet.org/rights/139878/is_a...candal_brewing/

Is a Cheney Cover-Up Scandal Brewing?

By Nick Baumann and David Corn, Mother Jones. Posted May 7, 2009.

Cheney may be responsible for deep-sixing an important torture memo -- an act that could be a crime. Will Dems bring the truth to light?


Who in the George W. Bush White House tried to shred a memo challenging the use of torture?

On April 21, Philip Zelikow, who was counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during the Bush administration, revealed on Foreign Policy's "Shadow Government" blog that he wrote a memo in 2005 disputing the conclusions of Bush Justice Department lawyers that torture was legal. The existence of such a memo was a surprise. But Zelikow also disclosed that the "White House attempted to collect and destroy all copies of my memo."

This story is not over. Zelikow tells Mother Jones that he doesn't know for sure who in the White House ordered the suppression of his memo, but he says that his "supposition at the time" was that the office of Vice President Dick Cheney was behind the cover-up. In an email exchange with Mother Jones, Zelikow notes that Cheney's office did not have the authority to request that his memo be deep-sixed: "They didn't run the interagency process. Such a request would more likely have come from the White House Counsel's office or from NSC staff." But that request did not reach him in written form. "It was conveyed to me, and I ignored it," Zelikow recalls. But he suspected that Team Cheney was probably behind it.

Zelikow, who is scheduled to testify before a Senate judiciary subcommittee on Tuesday Wednesday, also notes that his memo was not the only one raising questions about the administration's legal rationale supporting so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques": "There were a number of papers, mainly arguing for alternative legal frameworks." But his memo, he adds, was "a more direct assault on [the Bush Justice Department's] own interpretation of American law."

(UPDATE: The Senate judiciary subcommittee just formally announced the testimony, which will be on Wednesday, not Tuesday, as earlier reports had indicated.)

Congressional Democrats are already seeking any surviving copies of Zelikow's memo. They might now also want to request these other papers. (No such documents have been declassified or released so far.)

Cheney's office was reportedly the hub of the Bush administration's torture program. And Neil Kinkopf, a law professor at Georgia State University, who served in the Clinton administration's Office of Legal Counsel, notes, "People in the White House -- Dick Cheney for example; David Addington, his legal adviser -- didn't want the existence of dissent to be known. It's not hard to imagine David Addington playing very hardball internal politics and not only wanting to prevail over the view of Zelikow but to annihilate it. It would be perfectly consistent with how he operated."

Zelikow, who ran the 9/11 Commission before joining the State Department, wrote in his original blog post that he believed the administration had failed to erase the evidence of his dissent: "I expect that one or two [copies of the memo] are still at least in the State Department's archives." And four top congressional Democrats on Monday wrote Secretary of State Hillary Clinton [PDF] and Adrienne Thomas, the acting national archivist [PDF], requesting surviving copies of the Zelikow memo.

In their letter to Clinton, the Democrats -- Reps. John Conyers, Howard Berman, Jerry Nadler, and Bill Delahunt -- ask for a search of the archives that Zelikow believes may contain his memo. But the Dems' letter to the archivist requests more. In that letter, Conyers and the others request the Zelikow memo along with "[c]opies of any 'documentary materials'" that "mention or refer to" the Zelikow memorandum or "are related to or reflect any effort by an official of the Bush Administration to collect, destroy, or impede the preservation or retention of this memorandum." In other words, they are looking for evidence of who attempted to bury Zelikow's opposing view.

This could even have legal implications. Federal law -- including the Presidential Records Act -- requires that the White House adhere to strict record-keeping standards. If a White House official tried to disappear an inconvenient memo, he or she might have committed a crime. Concerning the Presidential Records Act, the Bush administration never was a stickler. If millions of emails can disappear, what's one memo?

The Dems want to get Zelikow's allegations of a cover-up on the record and under oath, and they will. In his email to Mother Jones, Zelikow says that when he testifies next week he plans to "go through a brief chronology of the various arguments for changing the administration position." But since Zelikow doesn't appear to know who attempted to smother his memo, congressional Democrats may have to do some legwork -- which could include questioning various Bush White House officials -- to solve this latest Bush-era mystery.

JUST ANOTHER INCONVENIENT TRUTH CHENEY IS TRYING TO HIDE! <_<

But THIS TRUTH has LEGAL RAMIFICATIONS! This is the TORTURE ICEBERG TIP! :coolwink:

We NEVER got NIXON...but we GOT AGNEW, HALDEMAN.ERLICHMAN,LIDDY & COLSON!

WE MAY NOT GET DUBYA!

BUT WE WILL GET CHENEY, ROVE, RUMSFELD, AND ARMITAGE! :good:

ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN PART DEUX! ;)

Come ON $ean! Are WE SUPPOSED TO BELIEVE RICHARD ARMITAGE OUTED PLAME WITHOUT ROVE KNOWING? ROVE WAS HOLDING THE PHONE WHILE ARMITAGE DID THE DIRTY WORK! :wtf:

Here's the latest from Limpturd. Rush claims that the ONLY REASON President Obama stopped the picture release is because he has to visit Egypt next month. That is OF COURSE A FABRICATION!

Somebody needs to tell the FAT BOY that the REASON the Barack Obama is stopping the release is because PETRAEUS, and OFFICERS IN AFGHANISTAN & IRAQ ARE IN A TENSE SITUATION AND THE RELEASE MAY CAUSE RENEWED ATTACKS ON THEM!

THAT IS WHAT HAPPENED AFTER ABU GHRAIB BUT CHENEY AND RUMSFELD DID NOT CARE THEN!

Rush, maybe Dilaudid or Demerol MAY HELP YOU TWIST THE TRUTH SOME MORE!!

This whole issue of torture and using waterboarding to get prisoners to link Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda is going to blow up big-time, IMO. The lies and deceit of the Bush administration will be revealed, and Dead-Eye Dick will be sitting at the helm of the entire thing. I think things are going to get very interesting . . .

Torture, as horrible and inhuman as it surely is, will be the tip of the iceberg. I believe that Dick Cheney certainly DID NOT excuse torture to protect and defend America. I think we will see evidence mount that shall prove what we know in our gut. Dick 'Sinister' Cheney promoted torture for the malignant purpose of forcing false confessions in order to attempt to tie Al-Queda to Iraq and thus mislead America into engaging in an illegal war based on lies.

I know of no worse sin a human being could commit than starting a war based on lies. All kidding aside, his behavior was indeed evil.

You got it Wayne! That is WHY Richard Cranium Cheney is working soooo hard to build a 'defense' for himself!

NOT FOR EVERYBODY INVOLVED! JUST HIM! :!:

BECAUSE HE WAS AT AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION RUNNING THE WHOLE SHOW!

General Petraeus asked OUR PRESIDENT to NOT INFLAME THE TALIBAN or EXTREMISTS IN IRAQ BY RELEASING TORTURE PICTURES! And HE COMPLIED! ;)

It is the FEDERAL APPEALS COURT that is ASKING FOR THE RELEASE! :angry:

'USA v. Cheney Et Al' will probably go ALL THE WAY TO THE SCOTUS! ;)

THEN AFTER WE GET THROUGH WITH THEM THEY WILL GO TO PRAGUE LIKE MILOSEVIC TO BE TRIED FOR WAR CRIMES & BREAKING ARTICLES OF THE GENEVA CONVENTION! :clap:

And I say to the Courts...

GIT R DONE!!!

They KNOW the 'evidence' is mounting up AGAINST THEM!

They THOUGHT McSame would WIN and THE BUSH REGIME could then BURY THE BODIES IN AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION LIKE THE 4000 PLUS CASKETS THAT CAME BACK TO DOVER AIRPORT ALL BECAUSE OF THIS!!! :angry:

Shylock wants HIS POUND OF FLESH DICKY BOY!

AND HE IS GOING TO GET IT! AND MAYBE YOUR HEAD AS WELL!

Pic courtesy of The Zaius Nation...THANK YOU DR ZAIUS!!!

http://zaiusnation.blogspot.com/

http://www.waterboardseanhannity.net/

HEY $EAN! KEITH IS STILL WAITING! :clap:

http://www.waterboardhannityforcharity.com/

The cover-up has already started with the media pimping GOP talking points and diverting attention to Nancy Pelosi.

What's up with this shit??? I'm sick of these idiots coming down on Pelosi. Here's the stupid poem from Huckabee. Don't these losers have anything better to do???? Obviously Newt Gingrich and Huckabee don't :bad:

http://primebuzz.kcstar.com/?q=node/18518

Huckabee's Pelosi Poem

from AHN

In the midst of Republican criticism against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's claim that the Bush administration had misled her about waterboarding, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has issued a unique yet rather effective statement belaboring the speaker.

Huckabee, an ordained Southern Baptist minister whose pro-life stance is widely believed to have brought him victory in the first primary contest in last year's presidential election, wrote on his website:

Here's a story about a lady named Nancy A ruthless politician, but dressed very fancy Very ambitious, she got herself elected Speaker But as for keeping secrets, she proved quite a "leaker."

She sat in briefings and knew about enhanced interrogation; But claims she wasn't there, and can't give an explanation. She disparages the CIA and says they are a bunch of liars; Even the press aren't buying it and they're stoking their fires.

I think Speaker Pelosi has done too much speaking; And instead of her trashing our intelligence officials, it's her nose that needs tweaking.

Pelosi is one of several Democrats who have called for a "truth commission" to investigate the detainee treatment by the Bush administration against detainees. Republicans have responded by saying that Congress had been informed by the Bush administration about the CIA's interrogation program, which includes waterboarding.

Waterboarding is a form of simulated drowning that critics say is torture. The Obama administration banned the technique two days after it occupied the White House.

Intelligence reports and Justice Department memos declassified by the Obama administration in the past weeks have confirmed that waterboarding and other aggressive methods were used by the CIA as early as 2002.

Last Thursday, Pelosi had insisted that she had been told by Bush officials that aggressive interrogation methods were legal under Justice Department opinions, but not that they were being used.

The Speaker, who has been accused of issuing contradictory statements about her knowledge about when the CIA began using waterboarding, said in her weekly pres briefing that that she had been briefed only once about enhanced interrogation techniques, in September 2002, when she was the top minority member of the House Intelligence Committee.

But she disclosed for the first time that she had found out in 2003 that waterboarding was being used by the CIA. She also said that Republicans were criticizing her to divert attention from the Bush administration's terror policies.

Pelosi said she was informed by an aide five months after the briefing that the Republican chairman and the new top Democrat in the Intelligence panel, Rep. Jane Harman, had been briefed "about the use of certain techniques which had been the subject of earlier legal opinions."

According to her, Harman had sent CIA General Counsel Scott Muller a letter to raise concerns and protest the use of the interrogation methods, but "no letter could change the policy. It was clear we had to change the leadership of the Congress and the White House."

Pushed by reporters to clarify her statement, Pelosi had said, "The CIA was misleading the Congress and at the same time the [Bush] administration was misleading Congress on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."

Sen. Kit Bond, the ranking GOP in the Senate Intelligence Committee, has called the claims "outrageous."

Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich also called his successor on ABC News Radio last week a "loser" and "a trivial politician" who was engaged in "the most despicable, dishonest and vicious political effort I've seen in my lifetime."

Over the weekend, House Minority Leader John Boehner said on CNN's State of the Union, "Lying to the Congress of the United States is a crime. And if the speaker is accusing the CIA or other intelligence officials of lying or misleading theCongress, then she should come forward with evidence and turn that over to the Justice Department so [they] can be prosecuted."

"If that's not the case, I think she ought to apologize to our intelligence professionals around the world," he added.