His Precious

Fascinating and not-too-surprising details in a new WaPo report, confirming Marcy Wheeler's shrewd bet a while ago that Dick Cheney was probably personally involved in the CIA briefings on his torture program. Yes, he was!

Former vice president Richard B. Cheney personally oversaw at least four briefings with senior members of Congress about the controversial interrogation program, part of a secretive and forceful defense he mounted throughout 2005 in an effort to maintain support for the harsh techniques used on detainees... The CIA made no mention of his role in documents delivered to Capitol Hill last month that listed every lawmaker who had been briefed on "enhanced interrogation techniques" since 2002. For meetings that were overseen by Cheney, the agency told the intelligence committees that information about who oversaw those briefings was "not available."

Why was the CIA unable to provide these briefings itself? And why did the CIA subsequently cover up Cheney's direct involvement? The more we learn, the clearer it is that the torture program was Cheney's baby; it was his central focus; it was his core idea to counter Jihadism and wage a war for human rights by committing war crimes against Muslim prisoners.