Obama: White House won't wade into CIA torture report dispute at this point
Source: Guardian
Barack Obama sought to distance the White House from the fierce dispute between top senators and the Central Intelligence Agency on Wednesday, claiming it would be inappropriate for his administration to become involved the clash over an investigation into the use of torture in post-9/11 interrogations.
In the president’s first remarks about the dispute since Dianne Feinstein, the chairwoman of the Senate intelligence accused the CIA of a cover-up and intimidation directed at her staff, Obama said it was not a matter for the White House to “wade into at this point”.
Obama’s remarks are likely to anger Democratic senators on the committee, who have been publicly calling on the president to get involved in the controversy, which has been characterised by bad feeling on both sides.
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/12/obama-feinstein-cia-dispute-distance
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Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)n-dimensional chess.
villager
(26,001 posts)...our intelligence apparatus!
It's a great head-fake, even though it appears, of course, the intelligence community gets to do whatever it wants, and the President is powerless in the face of it!
montanacowboy
(6,081 posts)he is still looking forward when it comes to torture
he had a chance to hold Bushco responsible and because he chose not to, it will forever be a stain on this country
Dem4ever27
(49 posts)It would be beneath him to skewer a former President.
bigwillq
(72,790 posts)Welcome to DU! 
JoeyT
(6,785 posts)Which was one of the big talking points in the 2008 campaign, of course. We're going to return to the rule of law! We're just not going to prosecute anyone that has the power to fight back.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)Enough things beneath one, people might begin to wonder if they should find someone a bit more connected to the lives the rest of us lead.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)president and holding war criminals accountable. We can never recover if we dont reestablish the rule of law. Hundreds of thousands of innocent people including children died because of the bullshit pulled by the Bush Gang. They should be tried in international court. Also, all those individuals that participated in torture should also be tried for war crimes.
crim son
(27,464 posts)Nanjing to Seoul
(2,088 posts)rogue agency in the executive, Barack. It's not like you can do anything. . .You're just the president.
Fearless
(18,421 posts)
tularetom
(23,664 posts)And I hate the fact that I'm taking Feinstein's side of the dispute.
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)This gets weirder by the minute.
riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)840high
(17,196 posts)
grasswire
(50,130 posts)1000words
(7,051 posts)
frwrfpos
(517 posts)goes with his giving a pass to war criminals like bush and cheney
sick fucking shit that the President is meek on this. wont say anything.
dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)Did any follow this :
WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama said Friday his administration would not compromise its ideals to fight terrorism, adding at a press conference to announce his CIA and national intelligence nominees that he has told them to honor the Geneva Conventions.
"I was clear throughout this campaign and was clear throughout this transition that under my administration the United States does not torture," Obama said, when asked at the news conference whether he would continue the Bush administration's policy of harsh interrogation. "We will abide by the Geneva Conventions. We will uphold our highest ideals."
9th Jan 2009 : http://www.nbcnews.com/id/28574408/ns/politics-white_house/t/obama-names-intel-picks-vows-no-torture/#.UyD5Nc4QeQw
OnyxCollie
(9,958 posts)OnyxCollie
(9,958 posts)Obama called on the former general chairman of the RNC to stop Spain's investigation of US torture crimes.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/12/25/105786/wikileaks-how-us-tried-to-stop.html
MIAMI — It was three months into Barack Obama's presidency, and the administration -- under pressure to do something about alleged abuses in Bush-era interrogation policies -- turned to a Florida senator to deliver a sensitive message to Spain:
Don't indict former President George W. Bush's legal brain trust for alleged torture in the treatment of war on terror detainees, warned Mel Martinez on one of his frequent trips to Madrid. Doing so would chill U.S.-Spanish relations.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/202776?INTCMP=SRCH
6. (C) As reported in SEPTEL, Senator Mel Martinez, accompanied by the Charge d'Affaires, met Acting FM Angel Lossada during a visit to the Spanish MFA on April 15. Martinez and the Charge underscored that the prosecutions would not be understood or accepted in the U.S. and would have an enormous impact on the bilateral relationship. The Senator also asked if the GOS had thoroughly considered the source of the material on which the allegations were based to ensure the charges were not based on misinformation or factually wrong statements. Lossada responded that the GOS recognized all of the complications presented by universal jurisdiction, but that the independence of the judiciary and the process must be respected. The GOS would use all appropriate legal tools in the matter. While it did not have much margin to operate, the GOS would advise Conde Pumpido that the official administration position was that the GOS was "not in accord with the National Court." Lossada reiterated to Martinez that the executive branch of government could not close any judicial investigation and urged that this case not affect the overall relationship, adding that our interests were much broader, and that the universal jurisdiction case should not be viewed as a reflection of the GOS position.
Judd Gregg, Obama's Republican nominee for Commerce secretary, didn't like the investigations either.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/202776?INTCMP=SRCH
4. (C) As reported in REF A, Senator Judd Gregg, accompanied by the Charge d'Affaires, raised the issue with Luis Felipe Fernandez de la Pena, Director General Policy Director for North America and Europe during a visit to the Spanish MFA on April 13. Senator Gregg expressed his concern about the case. Fernandez de la Pena lamented this development, adding that judicial independence notwithstanding, the MFA disagreed with efforts to apply universal jurisdiction in such cases.
Why the aversion? To protect Bushco, of course!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/200177
The fact that this complaint targets former Administration legal officials may reflect a "stepping-stone" strategy designed to pave the way for complaints against even more senior officials.
Eric Holder got the message.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=7410267&page=1
As lawmakers call for hearings and debate brews over forming commissions to examine the Bush administration's policies on harsh interrogation techniques, Attorney General Eric Holder confirmed to a House panel that intelligence officials who relied on legal advice from the Bush-era Justice Department would not be prosecuted.
"Those intelligence community officials who acted reasonably and in good faith and in reliance on Department of Justice opinions are not going to be prosecuted," he told members of a House Appropriations Subcommittee, reaffirming the White House sentiment. "It would not be fair, in my view, to bring such prosecutions."
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/06/cia-exhales-99-out-of-101-torture-cases-dropped/
This is how one of the darkest chapters in U.S. counterterrorism ends: with practically every instance of suspected CIA torture dodging criminal scrutiny. It’s one of the greatest gifts the Justice Department could have given the CIA as David Petraeus takes over the agency.
Over two years after Attorney General Eric Holder instructed a special prosecutor, John Durham, to “preliminar(ily) review” whether CIA interrogators unlawfully tortured detainees in their custody, Holder announced on Thursday afternoon that he’ll pursue criminal investigations in precisely two out of 101 cases of suspected detainee abuse. Some of them turned out not to have involved CIA officials after all. Both of the cases that move on to a criminal phase involved the “death in custody” of detainees, Holder said.
But just because there’s a further criminal inquiry doesn’t necessarily mean there will be any charges brought against CIA officials involved in those deaths. If Holder’s decision on Thursday doesn’t actually end the Justice Department’s review of torture in CIA facilities, it brings it awfully close, as outgoing CIA Director Leon Panetta noted.
“On this, my last day as Director, I welcome the news that the broader inquiries are behind us,” Panetta wrote to the CIA staff on Thursday. “We are now finally about to close this chapter of our Agency’s history.”
dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)and when info like this comes out, he has every right to worry.
c. Aug 2010, a caller was on with Hartmann. The caller ID'd himself as being mid-30's Republican who had voted for Obama in 2008 because (paraphrasing), "it makes me sick that my (Republican) party conducts and condones torture. I voted for the president because he said he would end it". There is one of those people who voted (D) in 2008 who didn't in 2010.
Sorry folks, but as the leader of the party and of the US, he's been pretty much of a disaster.
Response to dipsydoodle (Original post)
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WillyT
(72,631 posts)
jsr
(7,712 posts)Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)solidly behind the CIA.
Fortinbras Armstrong
(4,473 posts)Torture is prohibited under 18 USC § 2340. See also § 2340A, which says that those who order the torture are just as culpable. I should mention the Supreme Court case of Wilkerson v. Utah, 99 U.S. 130 (1879). Justice Clifford, in delivering the opinion of the Court, said:
Difficulty would attend the effort to define with exactness the extent of the constitutional provision which provides that cruel and unusual punishments shall not be inflicted; but it is safe to affirm that punishments of torture, such as those mentioned by the commentator referred to, and all others in the same line of unnecessary cruelty, are forbidden by that amendment to the Constitution.
(The "commenter" is Blackstone.)
There is also the UN Convention Against Torture, to which the US is a signatory. See in particular Article 1 and Article 16.
Had I been Obama, I would have said, in the first or second day of my presidency, "I am instructing the Attorney General to see if charges against former President Bush and former Vice President Cheney should be brought under 18 USC § 2340 and § 2340A (insert an explanation of these laws). If, as I expect, the Attorney General finds that charges should be brought, they will be. I realize that this action will be very unpopular in some quarters. However, I must emphasize that NO ONE is above the law. There is a legal maxim going back to the ancient Romans, Fiat justitia ruat caelum -- 'Let justice be done though the heavens fall.'"
