1115.org

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It looks very much like they lied to us about every aspect of everything.

Here’s what they told us before about detainee abuse and torture:

Until now, administration officials have insisted to other congressional panels that the government approved the use of “harsh” interrogation methods only after the military commanders at Guantanamo asked for permission to get tough with recalcitrant prisoners and only after serious soul searching.

This wasn’t just White House spokesmen and press secretaries spinning intricate silken web of untruths to the press. Unfortunately for William J. “Jim” Haynes II, who served as Defense Department general counsel under Rumsfeld and … who resigned last February, he testified “to a Senate panel in 2006 that the request for tougher interrogation methods originated in October 2002, when Guantanamo Bay commanders began asking for help in ratcheting up the pressure on suspected terrorists who had stopped cooperating.”

An investigation by the Armed Services Committee has now found that Haynes’ sworn testimony was a flat-out lie.

A Senate investigation has concluded that top Pentagon officials began assembling lists of harsh interrogation techniques in the summer of 2002 for use on detainees at Guantanamo Bay and that those officials later cited memos from field commanders to suggest that the proposals originated far down the chain of command, according to congressional sources briefed on the findings. The sources said that memos and other evidence obtained during the inquiry show that officials in the office of then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld started to research the use of waterboarding, stress positions, sensory deprivation and other practices in July 2002, months before memos from commanders at the detention facility in Cuba requested permission to use those measures on suspected terrorists.

The sources said that memos and other evidence obtained during the inquiry show that officials in the office of then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld started to research the use of waterboarding, stress positions, sensory deprivation and other practices in July 2002, months before memos from commanders at the detention facility in Cuba requested permission to use those measures on suspected terrorists.

The reported evidence — some of which is expected to be made public at a Senate hearing today — also shows that military lawyers raised strong concerns about the legality of the practices as early as November 2002, a month before Rumsfeld approved them. The findings contradict previous accounts by top Bush administration appointees, setting the stage for new clashes between the White House and Congress over the origins of interrogation methods that many lawmakers regard as torture and possibly illegal.
[…]
By late July, a list was compiled that included many of the techniques that would later be formally approved for use at Guantanamo Bay, including stress positions, sleep deprivation and the hooding of detainees during questioning. The techniques were later used at the Abu Ghraib detention facility in Iraq.

What makes Haynes’ previous testimony all the more unspinnable is the fact that Haynes himself was personally involved in “soliciting ideas for harsh interrogations from military experts in survival training” in July 2002. So when he’s charged with perjury, the “I didn’t know because nobody got around to telling me” defense isn’t going to work. In fact, he has been so clearly caught with his pants down that the Bush administration will have no choice but to throw this brave soldier on the front lines of TWAT under the bus.

He’s going to end up, if you will, as a martyr to the cause. Let’s hope the Bush cabal has a handsome compensation package for martyrs in their anti-terror jihad, even if it doesn’t involve several dozen virgins.

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The interesting thing is that this particular piece of Lying To America would never have come to light if the relevant files had contained memos from Guantanamo commanders seeking permission to use harsh measures on detainees that were dated June 2002.

It’s interesting what these people will and will not do in the pursuit of their agenda. They are willing to torture. They are willing to perjure themselves about torture. But they are not willing to forge documents to cover up perjury about torture. Thank God for principled public servants, I guess.