Rumsfeld: Worse than Clinton

This made me laugh. It’s from a 9/11 Commission memo summarising an interview with RAND staffers:

Did the military trust Clinton to use force responsibly? Yes, they disliked Clinton until they saw Rumsfeld.

You can find that on page 81 of the PDF file.

Detainee Abuse Timeline: Rendition Category Split

The old category covering rendition at the Detainee Abuse Timeline has been split. There are now separate categories for rendition before 9/11 and rendition after 9/11.

More entries will be added to the rendition before 9/11 category, in particular, in the near future.

The reason for the split is that, unsurprisingly, there are a number of differences in how the program was implemented before and after 9/11, and we wanted to highlight some of these aspects. For example, before 9/11, the CIA ignored the information tortured out of detainees because they knew it was meaningless, whereas after the attacks they lapped it up. It is also interesting to note that Bill Clinton himself was in two minds about the program and it was only a bon mot from the sainted Al Gore that got him to give it the green light.

Another interesting point is that a CIA officer named Rich B is a prime mover in the program before and after 9/11.