I call on all governments to join with the United States and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture and in undertaking to prevent other cruel and unusual punishment.
– Official Proclamation by President Bush, June 26 2003
And as an added bonus, Cheney’s claim that the torture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — the guy who was waterboarded 183 times in one month — gave them information that prevented a major terrorist attack on Los Angeles is (in the words of a senior FBI official) “ludicrous“. In fact, the LA plot had been cancelled by February 2002, and Mohammed was not captured until March 2003.
Does Cheney actually believe the lies that he keeps spewing out? As Hillary Clinton put it bluntly on Tuesday when asked about Cheney, “I don’t consider him a particularly reliable source of information.”
UPDATE: The agent who interrogated Abu Zubaydah also says that claims that torture was necessary to prevent future terrorist attacks is absolutely false. Interestingly, he also believes that use of torture was requested by contractors, not CIA officers. This puts a new spin on torture — it wasn’t the CIA, the FBI, or even the military who wanted to use torture, it was the Bush corporate cronies who were making tons of money off the war on terrorism.
UPDATE 2: Another mind-numbing quote from Bush: “War crimes will be prosecuted, war criminals will be punished and it will be no defense to say, ‘I was just following orders.'” I guess that doesn’t apply to himself (he was saying it to the Iraqis just before the invasion).
