Arriving soon after the deadliest suicide bombings in the last year, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made her first visit to Iraq in her new position, assuring Iraqis in Baghdad that they have the United States’ continued support despite the Obama administration’s focus on Afghanistan and talk of troop withdrawal.
Los Angeles Times:
“The end of the United States combat presence in Iraq by 2011 will mark the beginning of a new phase of our countries’ relationship. As we draw down militarily, we will deepen our civilian cooperation,” she said.
President Obama’s plan calls for U.S. troops to leave Iraq’s cities by the end of June, combat forces to leave the country by the end of August 2010, and all troops to be gone by the end of the following year.
But many Iraqis are concerned that the U.S. is pulling out too soon. At the heavily fortified U.S. Embassy, Clinton held one of the town hall meetings that have become a hallmark of her diplomacy so far, and some members of the invited audience of about 100 Iraqis expressed their anxieties.
Cuomo: Paulson Kept SEC Out Of The Loop On B Of A New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has just released documents from his investigation into Bank of America, its receipt of government money, and those billions in bonuses that went to Merrill Lynch executives. Here’s one quick nugget we found: It…
Obama: On Second Thought, Scratch That Commission Idea Is President Obama flipping back again on the subject of how to conduct torture investigations? His press secretary, Robert Gibbs, told reporters today that Obama no longer favored the idea of a bipartisan commission to probe the issue. “The president…
Some Things I Learned From This Week’s Discussion I led off this week’s discussion with a quick review of our main findings along with a plea to discuss some open questions about the sources of some of the changes in American politics in the past few decades. In…
Laughing at Ahmadinejad ++ VIDEO Clayton Swisher on Racist Hebron It was delightful to see all those European delegates walk out of the United Nations anti-racism conference when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took to the microphone. The mass exodus seemed to thoroughly rattle him. Few of history’s race-baiters have had the experience…
Has Dana Perino Really ?Never Answered? Whether Waterboarding Is Torture? In an interview with Chip Reid on CBS’s Washington Unplugged yesterday, former White House press secretary Dana Perino attacked the Obama administration for its consideration of a truth commission to investigate President Bush’s torture program. An investigation would be a “political witch hunt,” Perino said, claiming the interrogation program was actually “safe, effective, and legal.” […]
In an interview with Chip Reid on CBS’s Washington Unplugged yesterday, former White House press secretary Dana Perino attacked the Obama administration for its consideration of a truth commission to investigate President Bush’s torture program. An investigation would be a “political witch hunt,” Perino said, claiming the interrogation program was actually “safe, effective, and legal.”
When asked if she thinks waterboarding is torture, Perino tried to dodge the question, claiming she had simply never weighed in on the matter:
PERINO: What more is there to investigate? Unless they are on a political witch hunt. … Look, none of us want to talk about interrogation techniques. They are unpleasant for a reason –
Q: Well, they are not just unpleasant. Do you believe waterboarding is torture?
PERINO: I have never answered that question because I don’t know what I would have done in that situation, if I had to protect thousands of lives.
“Well you’re leaving open the possibility that it is [torture],” Reid noted. Watch it:
Except Perino has weighed in on the issue, and all indications are that she has said that waterboarding is not torture. When repeatedly pressed by reporters on whether the Bush administration tortured, Perino consistently and robotically responded, “We do not torture.” She uttered the phrase until the very end of her tenure, well after the CIA publicly admitted in February 2008 to waterboarding three detainees:
– “Let me just make sure it’s clear, and I’ll say it on the record one more time, that it has never been the policy of this President or this administration to torture.” [1/14/09]
It’s unclear why Perino is trying to dodge the question of whether waterboarding is torture given that she has clearly rendered her verdict on the matter multiple times. Perhaps she now realizes she wasn’t being truthful when she was flacking for Bush’s torture program.
Update Contradicting claims by conservatives that the Bush torture program yielded valuable information, McClatchy reports: “The CIA inspector general in 2004 found that there was no conclusive proof that waterboarding or other harsh interrogation techniques helped the Bush administration thwart any ’specific imminent attacks,’ according to recently declassified Justice Department memos.”
Jordan?s King Abdullah says U.S. tortured. Yesterday, NBC Meet the Press host David Gregory interviewed Jordan’s King Abduallah and asked him whether he believed the U.S. tortured detainees. “Well, from what we’ve seen and what we’ve heard, there are enough accounts to show that this is the case,” Abdullah said. Gregory pressed: DAVID GREGORY: That’s an important point. You actually do believe […]
Yesterday, NBC Meet the Press host David Gregory interviewed Jordan’s King Abduallah and asked him whether he believed the U.S. tortured detainees. “Well, from what we’ve seen and what we’ve heard, there are enough accounts to show that this is the case,” Abdullah said. Gregory pressed:
DAVID GREGORY: That’s an important point. You actually do believe that the United States engaged in torture.
KING ABDULLAH: What I see on the press … shows that there were illegal ways of dealing with detainees.
Effectiveness Of Harsh Questioning Is Unclear During his first days in detention, senior al-Qaeda operative Khalid Sheik Mohammed was stripped of his clothes, beaten, given a forced enema and shackled with his arms chained above his head, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross. It was then, a Red Cross report says, that his…
In South Carolina Town, Economic Calamity Since Obama’s Inauguration GREENWOOD, S.C. Her cordless phone stores 17 voice messages, and tonight the inbox is full. Edith Childs, 60, grabs a bottle of water, tosses her hat on the living room floor and scowls at the blinking red light. A county councilwoman, she spent the past 12 hours driving rural roads in her 2001…
As Census Nears, How to Count Inmates Is Debated NEW YORK — Elizabeth O’C. Little , a Republican state senator, represents a rural Upstate district larger in square miles than Rhode Island and Connecticut combined. But more than 13,500 of her constituents are not living there by choice, they could not vote for her if they wanted to, and most will…
Talk Shows Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows:
The Hollywood Liberal is an anti-war, anti republican, from right here beautiful Hollywood California.
This site was originally started to help get The Worst President Ever G.W. Bush Jr. Out of office. Now that we have accomplished that
the goal is to get Obama to start acting like a Democrat, and not an butt kissing Republican Wannabee. We will continue to fight for that goal
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