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Obama Administration Officials Woefully Unprepared For Waterboarding Questions

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by Tommy Christopher | 11:37 pm, May 3rd, 2011

» 37 comments

It didn’t take a genius to know that, once it was revealed that detainee intel was used in the successful hunt for Osama bin Laden, the question of waterboarding would come up, or that both sides of the torture debate would eagerly await vindication of their viewpoint. Yet, from the sounds of the responses given by several Obama administration officials, you would think they anticipated never being asked this question.

It didn’t take long for Rep. Peter King (R-NY) to claim that waterboarding was responsible for key information relating to “the courier for Obama” (can’t anybody get this guy’s name right?), a fact which, if true, would surely be promoted as vindication for the Bush-era interrogation techniques. Obama administration Counterterrorism Chief John Brennan weakly countered that claim, saying he had no knowledge of the use of that technique.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney was also asked about this Tuesday afternoon: (transcript via email from The White House)

Q    Can you say if there has been any change in President Obama’s opposition to so-called enhanced interrogation techniques?

MR. CARNEY: No change whatsoever.

Q    Were any results of such techniques used in helping to track down bin Laden?

MR. CARNEY: Mark, the fact is that no single piece of information led to the successful mission that occurred on Sunday, and multiple detainees provided insights into the networks of people who might have been close to bin Laden. But reporting from detainees was just a slice of the information that has been gathered by incredibly diligent professionals over the years in the intelligence community. And it’s simply strange credulity to suggest that a piece of information that may or may not have been gathered eight years ago somehow directly led to a successful mission on Sunday. That’s just not the case.

Q    I wasn’t suggesting it. I was –

MR. CARNEY: Okay. Others have.

Later in the day, CIA chief Leon Panetta said it was an “open question” whether waterboarding was used to obtain some of the information, and Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough, when asked the same question by The Last Word‘s Lawrence O’Donnell, went into a dissertation about how it was all a “mosaic” that would have made John Kerry say “Get to the f***ing point!”

All of this evasion and seeming contradiction gives a defensive impression, and the end result still ends up looking a lot like a “Yes!” So, if you’re not prepared to lie about it, and the answer is yes, you ought to just say “Yes, and it’s still wrong.”

Even barring that, you would think that with several years to think about it, they could have done better than telling their guys, “Just riff about mosaics for a few minutes.”

Worse yet, though, given the opportunity, McDonough doesn’t even hint that waterboarding is wrong. Asked by O’Donnell if this is a vindication of torture, McDonough essentially says, “Well, it wasn’t just the torture,” before returning to the mosaic theme.

That should have been a simple question to answer. “No, this doesn’t vindicate torture, because x, y, z…”

Unless the Obama administration is planning to pivot on waterboarding, their messaging is really shitting the bed right now, and they’re leaving a lot of daylight for torture proponents to gain ground.

Here’s the clip from The Last Word, with clips from the Panetta interview, and the full McDonough spot:

Denis McDonough, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Lawrence O'Donnell, Leon Panetta, Osama bin Laden, Peter King, The Last Word, Torture, Waterboarding

jacobjakeu

Liberal Tommy… please get your facts right. Panetta didn’t say it was an “open question whether waterboarding was used.”

He fully acknowledged the information came from waterboarding. He said it was an “open question” whether they could have gotten the information through other means.

The fact is, they got it from waterboarding.

Check out http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/42880435/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/ ….. even those liberals got it right.
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/glenn-beck-explains-how-the-unions-are-using-teachers-firefighters-and-co ImNotBlue

Fact is that the message, “Yes we did, but maybe we could have gotten it another way,” is a message of weakness. The moment they say that, they essentially transfer their credit for killing bin Laden directly to Bush and Cheney.

They simply can’t say that, and are in a lose-lose situation as far as waterboarding is concerned. They just have to hope that the media gets the message, and stops talking about it ASAP.
Jaurez

The president doesn’t decide or control what interrogation methods are used, the interrogators do. Let’s be real, here. Enhanced interrogation didn’t end when Obama took over the white house. He said out on the campaign trail he was going to end it and that it was wrong, bla, bla, bla but it was just words and he knew it.
Pablo

Williams: Turned around the other way, are you denying that waterboarding was in part among the tactics used to extract the intelligence that led to this successful mission?

Panetta: No, I think some of the detainees clearly were — you know, they used these enhanced interrogation techniques against some of these detainees. But I’m also saying that the debate about whether we would have gotten the same information through other approaches I think is always going to be an open question.

Williams: So, final point, one final time: enhanced interrogation techniques, which has always been kind of a handy euphemism in these post-9/11 years, that includes waterboarding.

Panetta: That’s correct.

That seems pretty clear.
da-wdc

I am a lot more interested in what they actually said, than about this meta issue of message coordination.

It seemed to me that they all said, not one single piece of information lead to successfully finding bin Laden. Surely as a journalist you could try to understand what they were saying? I didn’t have any trouble. It’s not that hard if you pay attention. And it’s not even my job to be paying attention to White House spokespeople. Many pieces of information forming a “mosaic” *is* the point. It’s really not that hard to get the point here!

Peter King and others jumped out to proclaim that torturing some people five years ago is, in fact, what produced the information that led to bin Laden. But it’s not just that King is oversimplifying – it’s that King is not in a position to know. He’s intentionally misleading people for political reasons.
Jaurez

Does anybody think Carney Barker would admit enhanced interrogation was used? He’s paid to lie.
Ardiva

Interesting read re: waterboarding
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/05/the-republican-spin.html
lonestar77

“That should have been a simple question to answer. “No, this doesn’t vindicate torture, because x, y, z…””

Come on, Tommy. To say what you want them to say with any hint of credibility would mean that they would have to believe that enhanced interrogation is torture and that it wasn’t successful. I think everybody knows that the only reason that the left cared that KSM was waterboarded was because Bush was President.
murf

I think Tommy’s not used to the bitter truth , that vindicates the othe side , is coming out of the White House …. I’m surprised too .
JasonMays

Ardiva says:
May 4, 2011 at 1:14 am Ardiva(Quote)
0 1
Interesting read re: waterboarding
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/05/the-republican-spin.html

Pardon me please if I don’t take anything Andrew Sullivan says seriously. Couldn’t you dig up a quote or article from someone more reliable? Was Dan Rather unavailable?
Barack Must Go

This constant in fighting between his administration officials and just their unprofessional snotty ( Obama ) demeanor on air proves to us ” real ” Americans just what lying schmuck we have for a president in Barack Obama. You cannot believe a word he says….unless you’re a lost in the wilderness lib that is.

To me Barack is only qualified to be a human late night talk show ‘ punch line ‘ certainly not president of the United States of America. Unfortunately all the hosts of those programs are also lying America hating schmucks themselves, so that’s never going to happen and we’re stuck with him for another 18 months.
Pablo

da-wdc said:
It seemed to me that they all said, not one single piece of information lead to successfully finding bin Laden.

Well, yes. Various pieces of information, and 10 years of investigative work, led to finding him. Some of those pieces of information came from enhanced interrogations. Surely you understood that was what Panetta was saying.
THE REAL ROYAL KING

I found the interview amusing. The media is not use to a largely leak-free White House. After the Raygun, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II years, we have a message control that must frustrate many a media person.
Probably NOT wrong

THE REAL ROYAL KING said:
I found the interview amusing. The media is not use to a largely leak-free White House. After the Raygun, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II years, we have a message control that must frustrate many a media person.

We also have a First Ammendment that forces Internet Sites like
Mediaite allow silly Old Fools like you come on and post stupid comments every
thread 24/7.
Cecelia

“Unless the Obama administration is planning to pivot on waterboarding, their messaging is really shitting the bed right now, and they’re leaving a lot of daylight for torture proponents to gain ground.”

Well, sorry that the Administration didn’t shoot down the notion forthwith, Tommy…. or launch into a diatribe against the procedure, but has it ever occurred to you that what the WH IS “prepared to lie about” is the notion that waterboarding wouldn’t be used now with the right “asset”?

The smartest move the Obama Administration could have made would be to put an end to the brouhaha over this issue, by appearing to have banned it.

Just as it would be smart for the WH to have captured OBL for long range info extraction, while saying they had killed him.

I
http://www.sarainitalyblog.blogspot.com/ sarainitaly

Rumsfeld said it did.

Panetta said it did.

http://j.mp/lMUE2w

Peter King said it did.

Jay Carney tapped danced around the issue, never denying it.

Chief John Brennan said he “had no knowledge of the use of that technique”. (non denial)

U.S. officials said it did.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42863247/ns/world_news-death_of_bin_laden/

Saxby Chambliss said it did.

Sounds like it did.

“Unless the Obama administration is planning to pivot on waterboarding, their messaging is really shitting the bed right now, and they’re leaving a lot of daylight for torture proponents to gain ground.”

Can’t run from the facts, I guess. But you’re right – they should have had their story straight. All the talk about did he have a gun, did he use his wife, we buried him at sea according to Muslim custom (which I heard isn’t true) is not coming across very well.

WRT the waterboarding issue, it is obvious that it played a roll. They can’t deny it, and don’t want to admit it, because of how Obama attacked Bush over it for years.

They used the Bush/Cheney policy (previously criticized as assassination rings by people like Olbermann) to get OBL, and they continue to use other Bush policies. Clearly some policies set up under Bush administration have worked and were successful.
Cecelia

sarainitaly said:
Clearly some policies set up under Bush administration have worked and were successful.

Clearly, the Administration either discovered that when they had occasion to come into contact with reality (by taking office), or they made a lot of promises to their base that they never planned to keep.

Either way, we still are operating under the vast majority of those Bush policies.
http://activitypit.ning.com/profile/massmurdermedia MASSMURDERMEDIA

as conservative i disagree with what seems to be an anti enhanced interrogation techniques position by christopher… but he’s spot on in his analysis… it should be a simple yes or no question and we torture proponents are gaining ground, which is a good thing…
Cecelia

ImNotBlue said:
They simply can’t say that, and are in a lose-lose situation as far as waterboarding is concerned. They just have to hope that the media gets the message, and stops talking about it ASAP.

Well, you miss the point here. That the Administration could/should outright and strongly deny the matter (as well as denounce the practice) whether accurate or not, is a choice that seems to have been recommended by Tommy.
Liberal Tormentor

Barack, you and plugs can admit you were wrong about waterboarding. It won’t hurt. Confession is good for the soul.
lonestar77

Tommy:
You don’t honestly believe that “enhanced interrogation” is torture do you? And, you don’t honestly believe that using EI on a total of 3 high value targets was wrong, do you? I’d really like to hear your opinion because I think the only reason the left pretended to care about it was due to their irrational hatred towards all things Bush.
Liberal Tormentor

Lonestarr, Tommy’s a lib. I’m guessing he thinks putting a terrorists in a cell with loud music and no blankie torture.
Rescuedog

Tommy, I thought you were a journalist, not one of the administration’s palace guards. The problem is not that they were “unprepared” to answer the waterboarding question, it’s that they knew they couldn’t truthfully answer the question with a “no, we didn’t get the intel through waterboarding.” The NBC/Panetta interview speaks for itself.
Probably NOT wrong

Frankly, I hope we have sufficient Blindfolds, Boards and Jugs of
Polluted water available to assist in interrogating these f*cks as fast as we
can bring them in.
Design an assembly line with Beach Music playing in the background.
http://www.thecobraslair.com Cobra

If Bush policies were “so successful” why are the results of killing and/or capturing terrorists so demonstrably better under the Obama Administration?

Second, if waterboarding was such a wondeful tool (it is a war crime under the Geneva Convention) and we’ve had thousands of detainees all over the world, why did the CIA only use it on THREE people?

Third, what would be your response to another country waterboarding Americans…not just soldiers…but citizens, who they are suspicious of?

–Cobra
Pablo

Cobra said:
If Bush policies were “so successful” why are the results of killing and/or capturing terrorists so demonstrably better under the Obama Administration?

How many has he nabbed? How many did the Bush Administration take out? Please demonstrate.

Second, if waterboarding was such a wondeful tool (it is a war crime under the Geneva Convention) and we’ve had thousands of detainees all over the world, why did the CIA only use it on THREE people?

A tunnel borer is a great tool, but you don’t use it to clear your clogged drains.

Third, what would be your response to another country waterboarding Americans…not just soldiers…but citizens, who they are suspicious of?

I’d prefer it to beheading. You remember beheading, don’t you, Darren?
http://www.facebook.com/people/Joshua-Taj-Bozeman/661000669 Joshua Taj Bozeman

“Second, if waterboarding was such a wondeful tool (it is a war crime under the Geneva Convention) and we’ve had thousands of detainees all over the world, why did the CIA only use it on THREE people?”

This claim is so absurd. The geneva conventions don’t cover terrorists! How difficult is that to understand?
If a terrorist gets convention rights, then the entire thing is pointless, as terrorists defy all the basic rules in place to begin with. They refuse to wear uniforms identifying themselves as a standing army, they kill civilians on purpose, and they refuse to play by any of the other rules in place. Thus, they don’t get the protections afforded legit players in the game.

Why do some people have such a hard time understand this concept? A terrorist gets no protections.
WCinWI

Ardiva said:
Interesting read re: waterboarding
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/05/the-republican-spin.html

Cobra said:
If Bush policies were “so successful” why are the results of killing and/or capturing terrorists so demonstrably better under the Obama Administration?

Second, if waterboarding was such a wondeful tool (it is a war crime under the Geneva Convention) and we’ve had thousands of detainees all over the world, why did the CIA only use it on THREE people?

Third, what would be your response to another country waterboarding Americans…not just soldiers…but citizens, who they are suspicious of?

–Cobra

Stop pasting a trig truther person onto this blog site. Thanks. :)
WCinWI

WCinWI said:
Stop pasting a trig truther person onto this blog site. Thanks. :)

Didn’t mean to include you Cobra.
http://www.thecobraslair.com Cobra

Joshua Taj Bozeman said:
“Second, if waterboarding was such a wondeful tool (it is a war crime under the Geneva Convention) and we’ve had thousands of detainees all over the world, why did the CIA only use it on THREE people?”

This claim is so absurd. The geneva conventions don’t cover terrorists! How difficult is that to understand?
If a terrorist gets convention rights, then the entire thing is pointless, as terrorists defy all the basic rules in place to begin with. They refuse to wear uniforms identifying themselves as a standing army, they kill civilians on purpose, and they refuse to play by any of the other rules in place. Thus, they don’t get the protections afforded legit players in the game.

Why do some people have such a hard time understand this concept? A terrorist gets no protections.

Hello? Most of the detainees held at Gitmo and other sites were RELEASED.

You do know that right? By your logic, EVERYBODY that was picked up and asked QUESTIONS was a “terrorist.” Do you understand how that sounds when you read it back to yourself?

Third, I’d ask you, and the other torture fans here where does it stop? According to a Bush Administration lawyer, and top torture advocate, John Yoo…

“This part of the exchange during the debate with Doug Cassel, reveals the logic of Yoo’s theories, adopted by the Administration as bedrock principles, in the real world.

Cassel: If the President deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person’s child, there is no law that can stop him?
Yoo: No treaty.
Cassel: Also no law by Congress. That is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo.
Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that.”

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11488.htm

Is that where you want to go?

–Cobra
Grammie

Cecelia said:
Just as it would be smart for the WH to have captured OBL for long range info extraction, while saying they had killed him.

.
My first thought and fervent hope upon hearing of UBL’s death was exactly that: I hoped and prayed that they had lied, had sophisticated plans in place to prove the “lie” while having all the time in the world to wring every last bit of intel from the pig.
http://www.youtube.com/user/KenyanBornObamAcorn#g/u ObamAcornLies

I don’t think he’ll be prepared for questions on THIS video EITHER!

Obama is TOAST!

The video that will END the Obama Presidency! Birthers Get Last Laugh & Demand Formal Apology
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1DHZmeMXyE&feature=channel_video_title
joe7

Based on how much I would have thought they weighed the multilayed implications of this I would have only assumed the torture issue was one of them when it comes to such an opperation.
LibertySister

Waterboarding saved American lives plan and simple. everyone knows we got intelligence from it.

The liberals rather protect and cuddle really bad evil people then fathers, mothers, daughters and sons who are good and innocent.

This is the difference between a liberal mind set and a thinking persons.
Tommy Christopher

Rescuedog said:
Tommy, I thought you were a journalist, not one of the administration’s palace guards. The problem is not that they were “unprepared” to answer the waterboarding question, it’s that they knew they couldn’t truthfully answer the question with a “no, we didn’t get the intel through waterboarding.” The NBC/Panetta interview speaks for itself.

Well, that’s almost exactly what I said, except that they should have had a better “Yes, but…” ready to go.
X-3

Obama Administration Officials Woefully Unprepared For Waterboarding Questions

Yup, they didn’t have their lies all worked out.
hgarner2000

We are the United States of America. We’re the good guys. That means we hold ourselves to a higher standard period. With interrogation there are ways and there are ‘vays’. ‘Vays’ can work, but so do ways and that is the truth.