More on Cheney’s Declassification Request

Greg Sargent requested, and got, the request form that Dick Cheney filled out and submitted to the National Archives asking for the release of “all” the memos that showed how effective the CIA’s torture program was.

“All” turns out to be two:

Cheney requested all of two CIA documents, a total of 21 pages.

You can look at Cheney’s request form right here. They open the window a bit on the scope and direction of his request, which he has claimed will prove that Bush’s torture program yielded worthwhile intelligence.

Cheney requested two CIA reports, both of them from the “detainees” folder, which suggests that the docs detail the interrogation of suspects.

One is dated July 13th, 2004, and numbers eight pages.

The other is dated June 1st, 2005, and numbers 13 pages.

The CIA has redacted the detailed description of the documents because they’re classified. In total, Cheney requested all of 21 pages to support his claim that torture worked.

We still don’t know if we’ll ever get to see these docs, but this is a start. More soon.

Spencer Ackerman responds to a question from David Kurtz about the memo dates:

David Kurtz remarks, “I’m a little surprised at first glance by how late those reports are dated, coming well after the 2002 capture of Abu Zubaydah and the 2003 capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.” But consider them in light of the timeline presented by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and other aspects of the public record. Then it’s not so surprising the documents would be issued when they’re issued.

OK, July 13, 2004. What had happened then? Two important developments. First, in May, CIA Inspector General John Helgerson had completed his review of how the interrogation program worked in practice, a still-classified document that appears to have found the agency had exceeded the boundaries demarcated for it by the 2002 Office of Legal Counsel memo that gave the program legal sanction. And second, in June, the new OLC chief, Jack Goldsmith, revoked that 2002 memoranda, which sent Cheney legal adviser David Addington into a sputtering rage:

[Addington pulled] out of his jacket pocket a 3-by-5 card that listed the withdrawn opinions. “Since you’ve withdrawn so many legal opinions that the president and others have been relying on,” Addington said, according to Goldsmith, “we need you to … let us know which [of the remaining] ones you still stand by.”

It remains to be seen what’s in the July 13, 2004 memo that the CIA produced on the interrogation program. But a safe bet, given this context, is that Cheney and his bureaucratic allies wanted something from CIA to push back on the obstacles the program created by Helgerson and especially Goldsmith.

Next, June 1, 2005. … That’s the day after new OLC chief Steven Bradbury had released the final of his three May 2005 memos that reauthorized the CIA’s interrogation program — rulings that found, among other things, that waterboarding (which the CIA says it had not performed since 2003) did not cause “severe physical pain.” All the memos, taken together, determined the CIA’s interrogation program was, in every material respect, legal. But it’s likely that Cheney recognized this wouldn’t be the end of the debate on torture — either internally, or with Congress and the Courts. Having material from the CIA — especially a CIA helmed by his ally, Porter Goss — arguing for the need for the program’s continuation would be powerful ammunition for any bureaucratic fight.

Via Spencer’s post, Marcy Wheeler found an apparent reference to the July 13, 2004, memo in the May 30, 2005, memo by Steven Bradbury — one of the four that Obama released last week.

ACLU lawyer Jameel Jaffer draws the perhaps obvious conclusion that the fact Cheney requested only these two memos means that’s all he’s got:

Two things that are immediately striking about the request Dick Cheney submitted for classified documents that would allegedly prove that torture worked:

(1) He only asked for a total of two documents, a total of 21 pages — meaning this is likely the grand total of proof Cheney himself is able to point to supporting his claims about the torture program.

(2) Despite the charge that Obama cherry-picked from the torture memos, it seems pretty clear that Cheney himself did some serious cherry-picking from the intel files.

This, at least, is the immediate takeaway of ACLU lawyer Jameel Jaffer, who’s been following this stuff as closely as anyone.

Cheney requested two CIA reports, both of them from the “detainees” folder. One is dated July 13th, 2004, and numbers eight pages. The other is dated June 1st, 2005, and numbers 13 pages.

“Vice President Cheney accused the Obama administration of selective declassification,” Jaffer told me, “but what’s clear is his own selective declassification here.”

“Cheney clearly had access to a great deal of information about the CIA interrogation program, and the intelligence that was obtained through that program,” Jaffer continued. “It’s striking that when trying to demonstrate the effectiveness of the program, Mr. Cheney has been able to point to only two documents that amount to less than 30 pages.”