But then at some point it became too obvious to ignore.

This information should bury the clandestine arm of the CIA. Ain’t gonna happen.

Please write one of your masterpiece Oxdown diaries on this, Rayne.

Semi-OT — at least this is not about the three threads EW draws together in this post, although it is about timing. (As always, it’s about timing.) It’s also about drawing together other threads, now that we have the unfortunate luxury of time and distance with which to scrutinize events of the past, like these:

After the war ended, the Top Secret order signed by President Bush to oust Hussein included a rare “lethal finding” — meaning deadly action could be taken if necessary. Under contract to the CIA, Rendon was charged with helping to create a dissident force with the avowed purpose of violently overthrowing the entire Iraqi government. It is an undertaking that Rendon still considers too classified to discuss. “That’s where we’re wandering into places I’m not going to talk about,” he says. “If you take an oath, it should mean something.”

Is it possible that the presidential finding construed as authorization to render, detain and torture goes back to a still-classified executive order from Poppy Bush?

Three weeks after the September 11th attacks, according to documents obtained from defense sources, the Pentagon awarded a large contract to the Rendon Group. Around the same time, Pentagon officials also set up a highly secret organization called the Office of Strategic Influence. Part of the OSI’s mission was to conduct covert disinformation and deception operations — planting false news items in the media and hiding their origins. “It’s sometimes valuable from a military standpoint to be able to engage in deception with respect to future anticipated plans,” Vice President Dick Cheney said in explaining the operation. Even the military’s top brass found the clandestine unit unnerving. “When I get their briefings, it’s scary,” a senior official said at the time.

Is it possible that torture was a part of this particular deception process, intended to provide content which could be used by this particular contractor, which though contracted to DoD at the time also worked in the past for CIA?

As Jane Mayer reported, Poppy Bush’s “lethal finding”

authorized the C.I.A. to spend a hundred million dollars to “create the conditions for removal of Saddam Hussein from power.”

Could those conditions include the use of torture when creating media spin through Chalabi and the applied misinfo of al-Haideri wasn’t enough? Would be nice to find somebody who could speak to that finding…or declassify it, if the subject of the finding is now dead…

[all bold above mine, btw]

• MAY 27, 2009
Record Shows Rulings Within Liberal Mainstream

Despite Democratic Bent, Judge Has Sided With Corporate Defendants; Court’s Frequent 5-4 Split Likely to Remain.

By JESS BRAVIN and NATHAN KOPPEL

WASHINGTON — “Judge Sonia Sotomayor has built a record on such issues as civil rights and employment law that puts her within the mainstream of Democratic judicial appointees.
. . .
“The question is whether Judge Sotomayor would, like Justice Souter, be a solid judicial craftsman, or emerge as a leader who can mold majorities. Liberals have long sought such a jurist since the departures of William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall nearly two decades ago.”

http://online.wsj.com/article/…..56559.html

By Scott Horton

“I’m just back after spending ten days in Italy, recharging and also meeting with European counterterrorism experts, judges, and prosecutors, and joining with many of them in an effort to assess where the Obama Administration is taking us. In the midst of my meetings there, Barack Obama delivered a major speech on the issue at the National Archives. The speech consisted of lofty rhetoric that was surprisingly short on details, which makes me hesitant to express a final judgment. Still, one of the European judges I met with put the question very well. “Every government is necessarily a prisoner of the past, and specifically of the government that preceded it,” he said. “The real question here is whether Obama is more of a prisoner of the Bush years than he needs to be.”’

More, much more.
http://harpers.org/archive/2009/05/hbc-90005043