[News] Ugly Questions for General Myers
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Thu May 14 10:59:22 EDT 2009
http://www.counterpunch.org/mcgovern05142009.html
May 14, 2009
See No Evil
Ugly Questions for General Myers
By RAY McGOVERN
Tuesday evening offered an unusual opportunity to
question the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff (2001-2005), Air Force Gen. Richard
Myers, at an alumni club dinner. He was eager to
talk about his just-published memoir,
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1416560122/counterpunchmaga>Eyes
on the Horizon (and I was able to scan through a
copy during the cocktail hour).
Myerss presentation, like his book, was thin
gruel. After his brief talk, he seemed intent on
filibustering during a meandering Q & A session.
He finally called on me since no other hands were
up. Some were yawning, but it was too early to simply leave.
I introduced myself as a former Army intelligence
officer and CIA analyst with combined service of
almost 30 years. I thanked him for his stated
opposition to interrogation techniques that go
beyond our interrogation manual; and his
conviction that the Geneva Conventions were a
fundamental part of our military cultureboth
viewpoints emphasized in his book.
I then noted that the recently published Senate
Armed Services Committee report, Inquiry Into
the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody,
sowed some doubt regarding the strength of his convictions.
Why, I asked, did Gen. Myers choose to go along
in Dec. 2002 when then-Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld authorized harsh interrogation
techniques and, earlier, in Feb. 2002, when
President George W. Bush himself issued an
executive order arbitrarily denying Geneva
protections to al-Qaeda and Taliban detainees?
I referred Gen. Myers to the Senate committees
finding that he had nipped in the bud an in-depth
legal review of interrogation techniques, when
all interested parties were eager for an
authoritative ruling on their lawfulness. (The
following account borrows heavily from the Senate committee report.)
Background: The summer of 2002 brought to
interrogators at Guantanamo fresh guidance, plus
new techniques adopted from the Korean War
practices of Chinese Communist interrogators who
had extracted false confessions from captured American troops.
On Aug. 1, 2002 a memo signed by the head of the
Justice Departments Office of Legal Counsel, Jay
Bybee, stated that for an act to qualify as torture:
--"Physical pain
must be equivalent in
intensity to the pain accompanying serious
physical injury, such as organ failure,
impairment of bodily function, or even death.
--"Purely mental pain or suffering
must result
in significant psychological harm of significant
duration, e.g., lasting for months or even years."
During the week of Sept. 16, 2002, a group of
interrogators from Guantanamo flew to Fort Bragg,
North Carolina, for training in the use of these
SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, & Escape)
techniques, which were originally designed to
help downed pilots withstand the regimen of
torture employed by China. Now, SERE techniques
were being reverse engineered and placed in the
toolkit of U.S. military and CIA interrogators.
As soon as the Guantanamo interrogators returned
from Fort Bragg, senior administration lawyers,
including William Jim Haynes II (Department of
Defense), John Rizzo (CIA), and David Addington
(counsel to Vice President Dick Cheney), visited Guantanamo for consultations.
And, just to make quite sure there was no doubt
about the new license given to interrogators,
Jonathan Fredman, chief counsel to CIAs
Counterterrorist Center, also arrived and
gathered the Guantanamo staff together on Oct. 2,
2002, to resolve any lingering questions
regarding unfamiliar aggressive interrogation techniques, like waterboarding.
Fredman stressed, The language of the statutes
is written vaguely. He repeated Bybees Aug. 1
guidance and summed up the legalities in this
way: It is basically subject to perception. If
the detainee dies, youre doing it wrong.
Needed: More Authoritative Guidance
Small wonder that on Oct. 11, 2002, Gen. Michael
Dunlavey, the commander at Guantanamo, saw fit to
double check with his superior, SOUTHCOM
commander Gen. James Hill and request formal
authorization to use aggressive interrogation
techniques, including waterboarding.
On Oct. 25, 2002, Hill forwarded the request to
Gen. Myers and Secretary Rumsfeld, commenting
that, while lawyers were saying the techniques
could be used, I want a legal review of it, and
I want you to tell me that, policy-wise, its the
right way to do business. Hill later told the
Army Inspector General that he (Hill) thought the
request was important enough that there ought to
be a high-level look at it
ought to be a major
policy discussion of this and everybody ought to be involved.
Gen. Myers, in turn, solicited the views of the
military services on the Dunlavey/Hill request.
The Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force all
expressed serious concerns about the legality of
the techniques and called for a comprehensive
legal review. The Marine Corps, for example,
wrote, Several of the techniques arguably
violate federal law, and would expose our service
members to possible prosecution.
Ends Justify Means?
The Defense Departments Criminal Investigative
Task Force (CITF) at Guantanamo joined the
services in expressing grave misgivings.
Reflecting the tenor of the four services
concerns, CITFs chief legal advisor wrote that
the legality of applying certain techniques for
which authorization was requested was
questionable. He added that he could not
advocate any action, interrogation or otherwise,
that is predicated upon the principle that all is
well if the ends justify the means and others are
not aware of how we conduct our business.
Myerss Legal Counsel, Captain (now Rear Admiral)
Jane Dalton, had her own concerns (and has
testified that she made Gen. Myers aware of
them), together with those expressed in writing
by the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force. Dalton
directed her staff to initiate a thorough legal
and policy review of the proposed techniques.
The review got off to a quick start. As a first
step, Dalton ordered a secure video
teleconference including Guantanamo, SOUTHCOM,
the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the Armys
intelligence school at Fort Huachuca. Dalton said
she wanted to find out more information about the
techniques in question and to begin discussing
the legal issues to see if her office could do
its own independent legal analysis.
See No Evil
Under oath before the Senate Armed Services
Committee, Captain Dalton testified that, after
she and her staff had begun their analysis, Gen.
Myers directed her in November 2002 to stop the review.
She explained that Myers returned from a meeting
and advised me that [Pentagon General Counsel]
Mr. Haynes wanted me
to cancel the video
teleconference and to stop the review because of
concerns that people were going to see the
Guantanamo request and the military services
analysis of it. Haynes wanted to keep it much more close-hold, Dalton said.
Dalton ordered her staff to stop the legal
analysis. She testified that this was the only
time that she had ever been asked to stop
analyzing a request that came to her for review.
Asking Myers
I asked Gen. Myers why he stopped the in-depth
legal review. He bobbed and weaved, contending
first that some of the Senate report was wrong.
But you did stop the review, that is a matter of record. Why? I asked again.
I stopped the broad review, Myers replied, but
I asked Dalton to do her personal review and keep me advised.
(Myers had a memory lapse when Senate committee
members asked him about stopping the review.)
I asked again why he stopped the review, but was
shouted down by an audience not used to having
plain folks ask direct questions of very senior officials, past or present.
I Confess: Rumsfeld Made Me Do It
Haynes told the Senate committee that there was
a sense by DoD leadership that this decision was taking too long.
On Nov. 27, 2002, shortly after Haynes told Myers
to order Dalton to stop her review and despite
the serious legal concerns of the military
services Haynes sent Rumsfeld a one-page memo
recommending that he approve all but three of the
18 techniques in the request from Guantanamo.
Techniques like stress positions, nudity,
exploitation of phobias (like fear of dogs),
deprivation of light and auditory stimuli were all recommended for approval.
On Dec. 2, 2002, Rumsfeld signed Hayness
recommendation, adding a handwritten note
referring to the use of stress positions: I
stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?
As the shouting by my distinguished colleagues
died down, I too remained standing, reminding
myself that I had wanted to say a word about the
Geneva Conventions, for which you, Gen. Myers,
express such strong support in your book.
I waved a copy of the smoking-gun, two-page
executive memorandum signed by George W. Bush on
Feb. 7, 2002. Thats the one in which the
President arbitrarily declared that Common
Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions did not apply
to al-Qaeda and Taliban detainees, and then threw
in obfuscatory language from lawyers Addington
and Alberto Gonzales that such detainees would
nonetheless be treated humanely and, to the
extent appropriate and consistent with military
necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of Geneva.
I then made reference to Conclusion 1 of the Senate committee report:
On Feb. 7, 2002, President George W. Bush made a
written determination that Common Article 3 of
the Geneva Conventions, which would have afforded
minimum standards for humane treatment, did not
apply to al-Qaeda or Taliban detainees.
Following the Presidents determination,
techniques such as waterboarding, nudity, and
stress positions
were authorized for use in
interrogations of detainees in U.S. custody.
Gen. Myers, I asked, you were one of eight
addressees for the Presidents directive of Feb.
7, 2002. What did you do when you learned of the
Presidents decision to ignore Geneva?
Please just read my book, Myers said. I told
him I already had, and proceeded to read aloud a
couple of sentences from my copy:
You write that you told Douglas Feith, I feel
very strongly about this. And if Rumsfeld doesnt
defend the Geneva Conventions, Ill contradict him in front of the President.
You go on to explain very clearly, I was
legally obligated to provide the President my
best military advice not the best advice as
approved by the Secretary of Defense.
So, again, what did you do after you read the
Presidents executive order of Feb. 7, 2002?
Myers said he had fought the good fight before
the Presidents decision. The sense was that, if
the President wanted to dismiss Geneva, what was
a mere Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to do?
In this connection, Myers included this curious passage in his book:
By relying so heavily on just the lawyers, the
President did not get the broader advice on these
matters that he needed to fully consider the
consequences of his actions. I thought it was
critical that the nations leadership convey the
right message to those engaged in the War on Terror.
Showing respect for the Geneva Conventions was
important to all of us in uniform. This episode
epitomized the Secretarys and the Chairmans
different statutory responsibilities to the
President and the nation. The fact that the
President appeared to change his previous
decision showed that the system, however, imperfect, had worked.
Enter Douglas Feith
Interestingly, Myers writes, Douglas Feith
supported my views strongly
noting that the
United States had no choice but to apply the
Geneva Conventions, because, like all treaties in
force for the country, they bore the same weight as a federal statute.
Myers goes on to corroborate what British
lawyer/author Philippe Sands writes in The
Torture Team about the apparent twinning of Feith
and Myers on this issue. Sands says Feith
portrayed himself and Myers as of one mind on Geneva.
Just before the President issued his Feb. 7, 2002
executive order, Feith developed this novel line
of reasoning: The Geneva Conventions are very
important. The best way to defend them is by
honoring their incentive system, which rewards
soldiers who fight openly and in uniform with all
kinds of protections if captured.
In his book, Myers notes approvingly that this is
indeed the line Feith took with the President at
an NSC meeting on Feb. 4, 2002, to which Feith
had been invited, three days before President
Bush signed the order that has now become a smoking gun.
According to Feith, the all-important corollary
is to take care not to promiscuously hand out
POW status to fighters who dont obey the rules.
In other words, the best way to protect the
Geneva Conventions is to gut them, as Dahlia
Lithwick of Slate put it in a commentary last July.
I suppose it could even be the case that this
seemed persuasive to President Bush, as well.
Which would mean that Doug Feith has at least two
contenders for the unenviable sobriquet with
which Gen. Tommy Franks tagged him the f---ing
stupidest guy on the face of the earth.
It is not really funny, of course.
Myers Hoodwinked?
While researching his book, Sands, a very astute
observer, emerged from a three-hour session with
Myers convinced that Myers did not understand the
implications of what was being done and was
confused about the decisions that were taken.
Sands writes that when he described the
interrogation techniques introduced and stressed
that they were not in the manual but rather
breached U.S. military guidelines, Myers became
increasingly hesitant and troubled. Author Sands
concludes that Myers was hoodwinked; that
Haynes and Rumsfeld had been able to run rings around him.
There is no doubt something to that. And the
apparent absence of Myers from the infamous
torture boutiques in the White House Situation
Room, aimed at discerning which particular
techniques might be most appropriate for which
high-value detainees, tends to support an out-of-the-loop defense for Myers.
I imagine it should not be all that surprising,
given the way general officers are promoted these
days, that Myers vacuousnesscum
deference-boarding-on-servilitycould land him at
the pinnacle of our entire military
establishment. Certainly, nothing he said or did
Tuesday evening would contradict Sands assessment regarding naïveté.
Myers still writes that he found Rumsfeld to be
an insightful and incisive leader. The general
seems to have been putty in Rumsfelds hands
one reason he was promoted, no doubt.
My best guess is that it is a combination of
dullness, cowardice and careerism that accounts
for Myers behavior then and now. And, with
those attributes and propensities firmly in
place, falling in with bad companions, as Richard
Myers did, can really do you in.
As we said our good-byes Tuesday evening, one of
my alumni colleagues lamented my ugly behavior,
although it was no more ugly than it was on May
4, 2006, during my four-minute debate with Donald
Rumsfeld in Atlanta. (Sadly, my encounter with
Myers was not broadcast live on TV.)
A Plaudit From the Press
In attendance was a reporter from the Washington
Post, but his note-taking was confined to
computing whether he should take the Posts
buyout, or try to hang around for the newspapers
inevitable funeral in a couple of years. (So
dont bother looking for a print story on the
Myers event.) As we departed, the Post-man gave
me what he seemed to think was the ultimate
compliment I should have been a journalist, he said.
I told him thanks just the same that my
experience has been that, unless they promise not
to ask ugly questions and keep that promise,
journalists of the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM)
are not permitted to stay around long enough to
qualify for a meager 401k much less an eventual buyout.
At least I was consistent, retaining with such
groups an unblemished
winning-no-friends-and-influencing-no-people
record, originally set three years ago when I had
a chance to ask an ugly question or two of Donald Rumsfeld.
Ray McGovern was an Army officer and CIA analyst
for almost 30 year. He now serves on the Steering
Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for
Sanity. He is a contributor to
<http://www.easycartsecure.com/CounterPunch/CounterPunch_Books.html>Imperial
Crusades: Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia,
edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St.
Clair (Verso). He can be reached at:
<mailto:rrmcgovern at aol.com>rrmcgovern at aol.com
The original version of this article appeared at Consortiumnews.com.
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