The Dark Side - Jane Mayer

"Whatever it takes"

Key individuals:
Dick Cheney (VP)
David Addington (VP's Chief of Staff)
Timothy Flanigan (Lawyer, White House Counsel's Office)
John Yoo (Deputy Chief of Staff, Office of Legal Counsel, Justice Department)

Key sentiment:
Post-September 11th, the executive branch placed emphasis on getting actionable intelligence quickly, with low priority placed on choice of methods used as long as they were effective.
Senior Executive Branch officials read Matrix intel reports, which somewhat increased an already high level of alert.
Bush: "Rule of Law Be Damned"
Overall, the feeling was that an attack could come at any time, a 'ticking bomb scenario'

CIA: Had no contacts within Al-Qaeda, and partially blamed the judicial and legal limitations and constraints for the intelligence failures leading up to the September 11 attacks. (p.38)

Presidential findings were made for a worldwide anti-terrorist campaign and for domestic spying (p.39), and the supporting legal decisions and memos were kept secret.

Important legal concepts/definitions (from John Yoo):
1)Concept of Presidential powers resembling those of a British King
2) Definition of 'Illegal Enemy Combatants", a new type of prisoner neither criminal nor POW
3) Definition of Afghanistan as a 'Failed State', in conflict with overt US policy
4) Definition of Torture: Physical- "Equivalent in Intensity to the Pain Accompanying Serious Physical Injury" Mental: 1) "Result[ing] in Significant Psychological Harm" 2) "Be of Significant Duration, e.g. Lasting Months or Years"

The findings led to a reversal of the overall trend of increasing oversight of covert operations, as well as the suspension of habeas corpus, denial of lawyers, domestic spying and wiretaps, torture and ignoring the Geneva Conventions.

Jails were established in friendly countries in the Middle East, Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and Guantanamo Bay. Tactics were reverse-engineered from SERE training.(e.g. stress positions,dogs, nudity, heat-cold, sleep deprivation, isolation in light/dark, starvation, beating, waterboarding, confinement in closed spaces)

However, according to the book the extreme tactics led to little or no actionable intelligence and caused blowback and loss of support for the United States around the world.

After reading 'The Men Who Stare at Goats', I find out that in the 50s, the USA had experimental programs on Soviet POWs in Germany that left less than 100% surviving, so actually there is some precedent for this sort of thing, although the thrust was different- medical experimentation vs. information extraction

The author also manages to work in Nietzsche's aphorism 146 from Beyond Good and Evil:

He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.