This is the full clip of Lawrence O'Donnell attempting to question former Bush Speech writer Marc Thiessen on his book "Courting Disaster" which promotes the idea that CIA Torture under Bush "was the most effective interrogation program ever", and that the canceling of that program by President Obama is "Inviting America to be Attacked!"
Lawrence counters Thiessen by being, I think justifiably outraged, that anyone would accuse a sitting American President of supporting terrorism against America. He's essentially saying Obama is a Traitor for banning Torture.
in his opening comment Thiessen statement he claims "We didn't even know who hit us?" on 9-11, as another argument supporting the view that the only good information we received was through "Enhanced Interrogation". O'Donnell then asks Thiessen "Isn't it true that the one who invited the FIRST Attack was George W. Bush (when he ignored the August 6th PDB)?"
What's most striking is that during the entire time that O'Donnell is trying to ask his question Joe Scarborough and Thiessen try to interrupt him and cut him off as if turning Marc's own fact-challenged ideas back at him is somehow "out of bounds".
Because of Joe's cock-block maneuver we never get to hear Thiessen address these facts.
Fact #1: Bush was indeed warned about an potential Attack by Osama bin Laden on U.S. soil, not just once but several times.
As I documented on the anniversary of 9-11:
Let us also Remember the Urgent Memo from Richard Clarke at the NSC to Condie Rice arguing that Osama Bin Laden and Al Qeada were an Imminent Danger. But he was ignored, then demoted.
Clarke in 2004: Bush Ignored Terrorism:
Let's recall how George Tenet, Clarke and others rode together in a desperate midnight meeting with Condie to warn her that "We Were Going to be Hit" and how this event was initially hidden from the 9-11 Commission until being revealed by Bob Woodward.
Let us remember the FBI Pheonix Memo which documented that there were some guys learning to fly planes who didn't seem all that interested in Landing them.
Let us remember the 52 Separate Warnings that were received by the FAA of an Al Qaeda Hijacking.
Let us Remember the August 6th PDB, which named the method (Hijacking Planes) and targets (New York & Washington) of an impending al Qeada attack. It did everything but include the date and time - something they could have figured out if they'd bother to look.
Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate bin Laden since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US. Bin Laden implied in U.S. television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and "bring the fighting to America."
After U.S. missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, bin Laden told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington, according to a -- -- service.
...
An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told - - service at the same time that bin Laden was planning to exploit the operative's access to the U.S. to mount a terrorist strike.
The millennium plotting in Canada in 1999 may have been part of bin Laden's first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the U.S.
Al Qaeda members -- including some who are U.S. citizens -- have resided in or traveled to the U.S. for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks.
...
Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.
Let us lastly recall that Bush wasn't just warned personally by the PDB, he was also specifically briefed by George Tenent in Crawford about the al Qeada threat and it's urgency.
Via Meet the Press in 2007
MR. RUSSERT: This is late July. The evidence coming in the intelligence: big event, spectacular, King, King Abdullah of Jordan calling, saying, "We have to go to Afghanistan. We have to do something." A presidential daily brief was prepared for the president on August 6 entitled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike in the U.S."
Late August, you went to Crawford, Texas, first time ever, met with the president, rode with him in his pickup truck. Did you say to him at that time, "Mr. President, Rich B told me at the CIA they are coming. You got to do something now"?
MR. TENET: Tim, by, by August, remember, this threat reporting starts way back in the spring--May, June, July, August. I held nothing back from the president. He understood our concerns about threats. He understood what we were doing around the world at the time. The interesting thing is is by the end of July, everything goes silent on us.
You know, I, I have every confidence that everybody in our government understood what I believed to be a very, very serious time period. At the end of the day, the authorities we were seeking were to get on the ground and work covertly with, with Ahmed Shah Massoud and the northern alliance. We wanted to get more proactive on the ground. The hijackers were already here.
Everybody in the government except apparently Marc Thiessen.
Fact #2: We knew al Qaeda had implemented the 9-11 attack before the day was over.
George Tenet specifically said on 60 Minutes that "I had a (Flight) manifest in my hand that showed (this attack) was by Al Qeada" yet he had people from the Pentagon telling him - on September 12th - "Iraq has to pay for this!"
Fact #3: "Harsh Tactics" were not the ONLY WAY to get good information from "Superhumans' such as Zubaydah and KSM!
As FBi Agent Ali Soufan has repeatedly revealed he gleaned information from Zubayda, confirming he identify of KSM and leading to the capture of Jose Padilla before harsh tactics were used.
Last week Soufan, 37, now a security consultant who spends most of his time in the Middle East, decided to tell the story of his involvement in the Abu Zubaydah interrogations publicly for the first time. In an op-ed in The New York Times and in a series of exclusive interviews with NEWSWEEK, Soufan described how he, together with FBI colleague Steve Gaudin, began the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah. They nursed his wounds, gained his confidence and got the terror suspect talking. They extracted crucial intelligence—including the identity of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as the architect of 9/11 and the dirty-bomb plot of Jose Padilla—before CIA contractors even began their aggressive tactics.
In his book Thiessan claims that Zubaydah gave the FBI nothing, that he displayed a "Superhuman" ability to resist and attempts to impune Soufan's credibility by calling him a "Hero of the Left", as well as a liar and a hypocrite. Using a minor discrepancy between Soufan's OP-ed statements the FBI Inspector General's Report, Thieesan claims that Soufan can't be trusted because his partner says he was present when the CIA gained key information from Zubaydah - not Soufan. But the primary issue isn't really who asked the question, it's under what conditions and techniques those answers were gained, and Thiessen here fails to prove his initial claim that "NO Information" was gained while the FBI were present at all because even he admits Soufan's Partner was present, and it is well documented that FBI Director Mueller eventually pulled all his agents out of this compromising position in mid 2002 before most of the OLJ memo's authorizing the techniques Thiessen supports were even fully implemented.
Also If Soufan has been lying about this all along, then he lied to congress, under oath.
Sen. Whitehouse also read a portion of the May, 2005 OLC memo that claimed that Zubaydah "identified Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as the mastermind of the Sep. 11 attacks" only "once enhanced techniques were employed." Whitehouse asked Soufan if this was accurate:
WHITEHOUSE: From your position at the actual interrogation of Abu Zubaydah you know that statement not to be true?
SOUFAN: Yes sir.
Thiessan's argument also has a problem with other portions of the Inspector General's report which, as noted by Emptywheel, indicate that the CIA deliberately intervened when Soufan (under the pseudonym "Thomas") was beginning to make progress with Ramzi bin al Shibh.
According to the, [sic] Assistant Chief for the FBI’s Counterterrorism Operational Response Team (CTORS), he and several agents, including Thomas, traveled to a CIA-controlled facility to conduct a joint interview of Binalshibh [redacted] with the CIA. The Assistant Chief said that the detainees were manacled to the ceiling and subjected to blaring music around the clock. He said the FBI agents worked with the CIA in developing questions for Binalshibh, but were denied direct access to him for 4 or 5 days, until Thomas was given 45 minutes with him. Thomas stated that Binalshibh was naked and chained to the floor when Thomas was given access to him. Thomas told the OIG that he obtained valuable actionable intelligence in a short time but that the CIA quickly shut down the interview. According to the notes of FBI General Counsel Valerie Caproni, Deputy Assistant Director T.J. Harrington told her that the FBI agents who went to the CIA site saw Binalshibh [redacted].
As far as the Hypocrite charge goes, Thiessan attacks Soufan for sending Muhammad al-Qhatani to solitary confinement "in contradiction of FBI Rules and the Geneva Conventions". Interesting that he thinks solitary confinement violates Geneva, but - according to him - waterboarding doesn't as shown here in his debate/argument with CNN's Christiane Amanpour.
I'm thinking the term "Full-On Bullshit Nozzle" applies here.
The end question however of whether Quatani's treatment amounted to torture has already been answered by military judge Susan Crawford - who determined that It Did.
"We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani," said Susan J. Crawford, in her first interview since being named convening authority of military commissions by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in February 2007. "His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case" for prosecution.
Crawford, a retired judge who served as general counsel for the Army during the Reagan administration and as Pentagon inspector general when Dick Cheney was secretary of defense, is the first senior Bush administration official responsible for reviewing practices at Guantanamo to publicly state that a detainee was tortured.
Lastly, the Library Tower Plot had already been foiled a Year before his Capture and there is also every indication that what KSM told us under torture were nothing but a pack of lies, and FBI Director Mueller has specifically stated "No Terror Plots Were Stopped via Enhanced Interrogation"
Fact #4: Bill Clinton did NOT treat Al Qeada as purely a "Criminal Matter"
It was the Clinton Administration that first implemented the Rendition program that Thiessan is now trumpeting. The Clinton Administration initiated the arming of the Predator Drone with Hellfire Missiles, and it was Bill Clinton who personally authorized the killing of Osama Bin Laden, years prior to 9-11, and using special Fores if possible:
From "My Life" by Bill Clinton:
Clinton: "Hugh [Shelton, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs], what I think would scare the shit out of these al Qaeda guys more than any cruise missle... would be the sight of U.S. commandos, Ninja guys in black suits, jumping out of helicopters into their camps, spraying machine guns. Even if we don't get the big guys, it will have a good effect."
The problem was that Special Forces Helicopters couldn't reach Afghanistan without flying through Iran or Pakistan. After 9-11 we had permission to use their airspace, not before.
Much of this strategy remains in place with President Obama, as it did with President Bush.
Fact #5: AdulMutallab, the "Christmas Day Bomber", is in fact cooperating and providing actionable intelligence, without being tortured or sent to a Military Concentration Camp like Gitmo.
Via CNN.
Washington (CNN) -- Senior Obama administration officials revealed late Tuesday they've secretly gained the cooperation of family members of Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab to help get the Christmas Day airline bomb suspect talking.
The cooperation effort has led to actionable intelligence that could help prevent terror attempts on U.S. soil, the senior officials said.
The likelyhood of getting adbulMutalab's Family to convince him to cooperate if they saw him being chained-up naked as al-Shibh reportedly was is somewhere between slim and nil.
So, no matter what Thiessen (or Jack Bauer) says - there iS another effective way to fight terrorism besides becoming a neo-totalitarian state that tortures and abuses untried and unconvicted suspects without respect to Justice, Fact or Human Rights.
It's sad that so many on Morning Joe refuse to understand that and think this argument is anywhere near "even".
Vyan