As I mentioned in this post, I’ve been weeding through the documents released under FOIA to Judicial Watch last week. I think they suggest there’s a much closer relationship between the CIA misrepresentations on Congressional Briefings and the destruction of the torture tapes than we’ve known before. Nancy Pelosi Was Proved Fucking Right As you [...]

I’m working on some deep weeds for a post later on Monday (hopefully). But as a preliminary to them, I wanted to point out a minor–but very critical–bit of timing. As I pointed out in the comments to this thread, someone (I’ll show in my new weedy post why it might be then-Counterterrorism Center Legal [...]

The latest CIA document dump also provides more background on how Abu Zubaydah got subjected to extended sleep deprivation long before it was approved. PDF page 113-114 explains: After consulting with the NSC and DOJ, CTC[redacted] originally approved 24-48 hours of sleep deprivation. In April 2002 CTC[redacted] learned that due to a misunderstanding, that time [...]

Since the AP story on the Salt Pit death, reporters have focused a lot of attention to a particular footnote in Jay Bybee’s second response to the OPR Report and what it claims about intent (and, to a lesser degree, what it says about Jay Bybee’s fitness to remain on the 9th Circuit). In it, [...]

It’s time to read the Bybee Two memo again. Since the OPR Report came out, we’ve learned the following (some of it was already out there, but I, at least, hadn’t noticed it): After his 63rd interrogation session, Abu Zubaydah experienced what his torturers call “hard dislocation” An “issue arose” during the interrogation of Abu [...]

Whoever wrote Abu Zubaydah’s psychological evaluation claimed to have succeeded in subjecting Abu Zubaydah to “hard” dislocation after his 63rd session of torture. And that claim was made before OLC approved the use of torture with him. I’ve long been aware that we got two versions of Abu Zubaydah’s psychological evaluation last August: the copy [...]

As I pointed out in an earlier post, when Counterterrorism Center lawyer Jonathan Fredman sent the torturers in Thailand a green light for torture in August 2002, he relied on language about intent from a July 13, 2002 fax from John Yoo to John Rizzo rather than the finalized August 1 Bybee Memo. In a [...]

As I pointed out in my last post, when Jonathan Fredman wrote the Abu Zubaydah torture team in Thailand to tell them they had gotten the green light to torture, he cited not the Bybee One memo which had just been signed, but a July 13, 2002 Yoo fax, for his discussion of intent. This [...]

There’s an astounding passage in Bybee’s Second Response to the OPR Report that reveals that Abu Zubaydah’s torturers relied on a July 13, 2002 memo Yoo sent to John Rizzo, rather than the Bybee One Memo, for their general torture authorization. In a passage attempting to refute OPR’s assertion that the Bybee Memo was written [...]

Jonathan Fredman told Gitmo officers he would show them one of the documents used to get DOJ approval.