When you get an opportunity like this, don\u2019t fall back \u2013 I heard my Irish grandmother telling me last Thursday as I took my place at the table to discuss torture with a former congressional committee chairman whose job it was to prevent such abuse.<\/p>\n
Almost rubbing shoulders with me on my right was former House Intelligence Committee chair (2004-2007) Pete Hoekstra, a Republican from Michigan. Central China TV had asked both of us to address the findings of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture. I said yes, of course, since I was highly interested in how Hoekstra, with his front seat for the saga of \u201cEnhanced Interrogation Techniques,\u201d would try to \u2018splain it all.<\/p>\n
Here was a unique chance to publicly confront a malleable, moral dwarf who had been in a uniquely powerful position to end the torture. The moment was also an odd one, for Hoekstra \u2013 not the brightest star in the constellation \u2013 seemed oblivious to his gross misfeasance and dereliction of duty. Or how his behavior might look to non-torture aficionados.<\/p>\n
Hoekstra took over the House intelligence \u201coversight\u201d committee in 2004 when former chair, Porter Goss, a Republican from Florida, was picked as the perfect \u2013 as in fully-briefed-and-complicit \u2013 functionary to become director of the CIA, replacing \u201cslam-dunk\u201d George Tenet. Tenet left in disgrace in July 2004, still seeking those notional Iraqi \u201cweapons of mass destruction\u201d in vain.<\/p>\n
Last week, amid the unfolding torture scandal, Hoekstra went on CCTV America\u2019s daily talk show, \u201cThe Heat,\u201d to offer a heated defense of what he insisted on still calling \u201cenhanced interrogation techniques.\u201d My opportunity for a blunt exchange with him over exactly what the House Intelligence Committee knew came near the end of the show.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I had already been trying hard to decode for the TV audience the bull-excrement coming from Hoekstra and others quoted on the program. At one point, as luck would have it, the moderator asked me about the CIA\u2019s fear-driven argument that the \u201curgency\u201d of preventing additional terrorist attacks justified short-cuts like torture.<\/p>\n
A hat tip here to my VIPS colleague Larry Johnson, who had called my attention earlier that day to the actual time sequence involving the capture and interrogation of detainee Abu Zubaydah, noting that if that scenario reflected \u201ctime-urgency,\u201d we are all in serious trouble.<\/p>\n
After FBI interrogators, using the traditional rapport-building approach to Abu Zubaydah, extracted a good deal of useful information from him in April 2002, Washington (for reasons not yet fully clear) ordered the FBI to give him over to CIA officials. They kept him in solitary confinement, asking him no questions, from mid-June 2002 until Aug. 4, giving time for torture-friendly lawyers in Washington to come up with some tortured legal justifications to \u201cauthorize\u201d waterboarding and other abusive techniques. Zubaydah was then waterboarded 83 times, yielding no useful intelligence.<\/p>\n
Clashing with Hoekstra<\/strong><\/p>\n As the program neared its end, the host turned back to me and asked me to respond to former Vice President Dick Cheney\u2019s ardent defense of the torture program. I focused my criticism on Cheney as the \u201ceminence grise\u201d behind the Bush administration plunge into the \u201cdark side.\u201d<\/p>\n But I also saw an opportunity to press Hoekstra on his knowledge and complicity, though I framed my question to give him an out on direct knowledge about the grisly torture techniques, from waterboarding and hanging people from ceilings to forced nudity and \u201crectal rehydration.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know if he [Cheney] checked with you, Congressman Hoekstra, he really should have, but I\u2019m amazed if you were either unaware of these things or whether you condoned them,\u201d I said, addressing Hoekstra only inches away.<\/p>\n \u201cI think I\u2019ve been very open,\u201d Hoekstra responded, indicating that he did know and did approve.<\/p>\n McGovern: \u201cYou condoned them. My God!\u201d<\/p>\n Hoekstra: \u201cI explained this to you. Members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats, leadership on both sides, Gang of Eight \u2026\u201d.<\/p>\n McGovern: \u201cThought that torture was okay?\u201d<\/p>\n Hoekstra: \u201cThought that the enhanced interrogation techniques \u2026<\/p>\n McGovern: \u201cThat\u2019s torture.\u201d<\/p>\n Hoekstra: \u201c\u2026 were appropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n McGovern: \u201cLet\u2019s not use these sobriquets. This was torture.\u201d<\/p>\n Hoekstra: \u201cNo, the Justice Department \u2026 characterized them as legal. To say that you were aghast that we heard, no.\u201d<\/p>\n McGovern: \u201cI\u2019m aghast that you were briefed on it. You\u2019re supposed to be overseeing these things, you should stop these things. \u2026 You were co-opted.\u201d<\/p>\n Hoekstra: \u201cNo, we weren\u2019t. Republicans and Democrats were fully briefed on these programs and we agreed with them.\u201d<\/p>\n I still thought I\u2019d give the former congressman a path out of the pro-torture corner that he was painting himself into, by suggesting that he might be simply embarrassed that he had been misled by the CIA and the Bush administration, that he had been kept in the dark about the darkest of the dark side, but Hoekstra just kept painting.<\/p>\n McGovern: \u201cYou were lied to and you\u2019re ashamed to admit that you were lied to.\u201d<\/p>\n Hoekstra: \u201cI\u2019m not ashamed that I was lied to. I\u2019m admitting that these programs were briefed to us. I\u2019ve talked to my staff going back and said after this \u2018revelation\u2019 came out \u2026how much of what is in this Dianne Feinstein report, this partisan report, this Democrat report, how much did we know? Ninety to 95 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n McGovern: \u201cOh, my God! What a terrible admission! Aren\u2019t you ashamed?\u201d<\/p>\n Hoekstra: \u201cNo, I\u2019m not ashamed.\u201d<\/p>\n McGovern: \u201cMy God!\u201d<\/p>\n Then, Hoekstra tried to suggest that I was being disloyal to my former colleagues at the CIA as if the few senior officials who pushed for the torture and the few \u2013 mostly contractors \u2013 who carried it out were representative of most CIA personnel among whom I had served for 27 years. Hoekstra was waving a red flag, so I played the bull, forsaking the usually obligatory deference and politeness. I let him have it. (Sometimes it doesn\u2019t help to be Irish.)<\/p>\n Hoekstra: \u201cI reached a different conclusion as did many of your colleagues at the CIA \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n McGovern: \u201cThese are not my colleagues! These are thugs hired by Dick Cheney!\u201d<\/p>\n Hoekstra: \u201cThese are people you walked away from. These are heroes for America\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n McGovern: \u201cThese are thugs headed by Dick Cheney!\u201d<\/p>\n Hoekstra: \u201c\u2026who are protecting America.\u201d<\/p>\n That was when the host politely brought the program to a conclusion. [For this exchange, see minutes 8:23 to 10:41 of Part Three, though I think the entire program is worth watching. Part One<\/a>, Part Two<\/a> and Part Three<\/a>.] <\/p>\n Limited US Viewing<\/strong><\/p>\n Few Americans are likely to be among those who saw \u201cThe Heat\u201d on Dec. 11 or will see it on YouTube. But there is some consolation in the claim that, according to CCTV, a billion Chinese-speakers normally watch the dubbed-into-Mandarin version of this program, and not only in China. Even if the actual number is only half that, well, that will amount to about 500,000 viewers more than the audience in the United States. Some solace.<\/p>\n Since Dec. 9, when the Senate report was released, I also have been interviewed on Canadian TV, Aljazeera, Russian TV, Sky News (UK), two taped Russian prime-time Sunday evening TV programs, Radio Scotland (BBC), Radio New Zealand, and three Radio Pacifica programs. Some of the above hosted me as many as four times, and I have had to turn down, or refer to others, additional invitations (yes, all of these from abroad, as well).<\/p>\n For some reason, despite a prompt press release issued on Tuesday morning, U.S. media remain uninterested in my blunt commentary on the subject of torture. As the CCTV interview indicated, I cannot be counted on to be pleasant when discussing torture, particularly with those who could have, and should have, prevented it.<\/p>\n