Outsiders v. Government Experts, Part 2
by eriposte
Continuing the theme from yesterday's post, there's a great piece by Greg Miller of the Los Angeles Times today (via Laura) titled "CIA reportedly declined to closely evaluate harsh interrogations". A key inference from the story is that the claims by torture supporters like former CIA chief Michael Hayden and former Vice President Dick Cheney are, um, thin and basically represent cherry-picking from reports that were never intended to evaluate whether the gains from the torture regime were higher than what could have been accomplished with legal interrogation techniques that didn't involve the commission of war crimes. The article also points out that the CIA Inspector General report raised alarms within the CIA that the waterboarding technique that was being used went way beyond what was "authorized". Evidently, then CIA chief George Tenet (temporarily?) suspended the use of waterboarding in 2003. I would recommend you read the entire piece by Miller.
Miller also reports (emphasis mine, throughout this post):
The CIA used an arsenal of severe interrogation techniques on imprisoned Al Qaeda suspects for nearly seven years without seeking a rigorous assessment of whether the methods were effective or necessary, according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with the matter.
The part that struck me though was that when there was a push to really review the need for the use of torture, the people behind the torture program did not rely on experts on interrogation within the intelligence community. They promptly outsourced the so-called review to former officials who had no background in interrogation. So, who were these officials who were willing to lend their names to this program?
Well, one of the names cited by Miller is Gardner Peckham who works for the firm BKSH & Associates - which seems to be a glorified lobbying firm. Miller says that:
One report by a former government official -- not an interrogation expert -- was about 10 pages long and amounted to a glowing review of interrogation efforts.
[...]
Gardner Peckham, a national security advisor to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, produced the approximately 10-page document that praised the program. It concluded that the program was "very structured and very disciplined," said a former official familiar with its contents, but did not assess the effectiveness of various methods.
Interestingly, Peckham's bio on the BKSH website notes, among other things, that:
He has served on several advisory groups to senior officials in the intelligence community. Mr. Peckham received an award of appreciation from the DCI Counterterrorism Center in August 2005.
Hmmm, I wonder whether that "award of appreciation" was to thank Peckham for endorsing the commission of war crimes. Inquiring minds would love to know.
The other individual named in Miller's article is John Hamre:
Goss, who had taken the helm at the CIA four months after the inspector general's report was filed, eventually complied. But Helgerson had envisioned a group of experts, perhaps including specialists from the FBI; Goss turned instead to two former government officials with little background in interrogation.
Gardner Peckham, a national security advisor to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, produced the approximately 10-page document that praised the program. It concluded that the program was "very structured and very disciplined," said a former official familiar with its contents, but did not assess the effectiveness of various methods.
A separate report, submitted by John Hamre, a former deputy Defense secretary, was similar in scope and led to no significant alterations of the program. Hamre and Peckham both declined to comment.
John Hamre appears to be this guy who runs the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). I would like to know if either Hamre or the CSIS endorse the commission or rubber-stamping of war crimes and if that is part of the "studies" they fund. I would also love to know if the Board of CSIS cares to know more about what Mr. Hamre actually said regarding the CIA's torture regime.
The bottom line is simple. The supporters of torture within the Bush administration realized that they could not get the support from intelligence officials who were experts in interrogation - so, they first turned to inexperienced people within the Government and particularly CIA contractors with no background in interrogation in order to set up the torture regime. Then, when it became clear that the torture regime was implemented in a manner that was violating even the fraudulent "legal" justifications provided for it by the Bybees, Yoos, etc., then, rather than have the program audited by interrogation experts, they turned yet again to inexperienced third-parties outside the Government to get a stamp of approval for the horrible program.
As Miller points out:
"Nobody with expertise or experience in interrogation ever took a rigorous, systematic review of the various techniques -- enhanced or otherwise -- to see what resulted in the best information," said a senior U.S. intelligence official involved in overseeing the interrogation program.
As a result, there was never a determination of "what you could do without the use of enhanced techniques," said the official, who like others described internal discussions on condition of anonymity.
That, of course, is exactly what the Bush regime wanted, so that Dick Cheney could continue to go on TV and say whatever he wants to justify his war crimes (and amazingly become a convert in favor of declassification of Government documents), while faithful Village supporters like Stuart Taylor could cite Dick Cheney and George Tenet as being reliable authorities whose claims are believable, using such extraordinarily persuasive arguments such as "I see little reason to doubt their sincerity".