Former DIA Director Responds To Bush’s Torture Ban Veto: ‘I’d Fire Mike McConnell’

[marmar]

from Think Progress:



Former DIA Director Responds To Bush’s Torture Ban Veto: ‘I’d Fire Mike McConnell’


Today in his radio address, President Bush announced that he had vetoed the Intelligence Authorization Act, which would ban the use of waterboarding and place the CIA’s interrogation program under the dictates of the U.S. Army Field Manual.

In the past few weeks, Bush administration officials have aggressively attempted to defend the CIA’s torture techniques. The most incredible statements came from spokeswoman Dana Perino and Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell. On Feb. 14, Perino defended the veto decision by denigrating the experience of U.S. troops:

The Army Field Manual is a perfectly appropriate document that is important for young GIs, some so young that they’re not even able to legally get a drink in the states where they’re from.

Before the Senate Intelligence Committee that same day, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell echoed Perino’s comments, stating that the Army Field Manual is “designed for young and inexperienced” men and women in uniform.

ThinkProgress spoke with ret. Army Lt. Gen. Harry E. Soyster, who served as the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) during DESERT SHIELD/STORM. He called Bush’s veto a “mistake”:

I think that he will be sending an unclear message to the troops. … Gen. Petraeus has made it very clear in his letter to the troops that the standard is the Army Field Manual.

Soyster also sharply criticized McConnell’s defense of the techniques:

I would say that if Mike McConnell worked for me, I’d fire him. That is one of the weakest arguments. The Army has a lot of good training, 10-, 18-week courses at the school. And many of our interrogators have been in the Army for 28 years. They’re not 18-year old kids. <…>

And the idea, in fact, these techniques the experts at the CIA — waterboarding, sleep deprivation, hypothermia, whatever those techniques are — it doesn’t take much expertise to use those. You know, dumb guys in the Middle Ages were doing the same thing. The KGB were strong on sleep deprivation. So there’s no skill required from the CIA. They may need those techniques because of their skill level. And they think that they need them.

Soyster added that one of the interrogation experts who had worked for him at the DIA laughed “at the idea that anyone would be so incompetent as to have to use any of these techniques.” Many interrogators, in fact, don’t even go to the extend that the Field Manual authorizes, “because good interrogators don’t need those techniques.”

Soyster also noted that the three-star commander in Afghanistan confirmed that the Army Field Manual “gives him everything he needs.”

UPDATE: The Gavel has respones from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), as well as other military leaders.


http://thinkprogress.org/2008/03/08/dia-director-torture/

[Vincardog]

1. I will believe that these "techniques" are effective when they use them on bush's nominees to the SC

[Aviation Pro]

2. I have personal experience with those techniques....

...when I went through a course of significance they were used on me. Trust me, they work.

[Vincardog]

3. "Trust me, they work." What do they do? Get the person to tell you exactly what you want to hear?

[Bobbieo]

4. Whether the information is true of false - great for

propaganda techniques.

[Vincardog]

5. It is great to demonstrate that we are a lawless country deserving no respect.

The purpose of torture is to terrify US.

[Aviation Pro]

6. These techniques were done to me....

...and yes they got the information they were looking for. This was a training environment, and, no, it wasn't waterboarding.

[Vincardog]

7. This is the first time I have heard anyone say the torture yields USEFUL information

I thought it was accepted by every civilized person that torture offers no benefit.
Imagine my surprise.

[Aviation Pro]

8. It wasn't torture by definition....

...they were proven interrogation techniques. You'll have to do your own research to get a better idea of what is effective and what isn't effective. Start with WWII and the very vetted methodologies of the interrogators of that era.

[Vincardog]

9. I have no interest in debating with you about what is or is not torture.

The OP was talking about jr vetoing a bill that would ban already illegal techniques that are torture. You piped in with the statement that you had experienced those techniques.

I do not have to do any research to know that sleep deprivation, stress positions, water boarding, extremes in temperature, and other psychological and physical "techniques" are torture.

I know that torture has been proved to yield NO USEFUL RESULTS.

Now you don't want to say what "techniques" you were exposed to but that "It wasn't torture by definition". OK what has you experience got to do with this discussion?

IF you were not tortured and you gave up the information that goes to show that torture is not necessary.