Leahy: Who Told People To Break The Law?

Patrick Leahy challenges Schieffer's ridiculous claim that there is nothing left to know about what took place under the Bush administration.

The truth is that we might simply be looking at the tip of a very large iceberg.

And Leahy also challenges the ridiculous notion, which many Republicans are spouting, that to seek justice is to reduce the US to the status of "a banana republic".

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well, is there the risk? I mean, and you know the argument you-- we’ve been hearing it all that-- that we somehow criminalize our political system. I mean, you know, in banana republics one group throws out the other group and they put them all in jail and then they stay there till somebody else comes along and throws them in jail.

SENATOR PATRICK LEAHY: (Overlapping) But I'm not--

BOB SCHIEFFER: Are we going down that kind of trail here?

SENATOR PATRICK LEAHY: No. I think not. And I-- you know, I've heard the talking point that’s -- usually by people who are afraid they may be looked are the ones making that -- making that argument. But I'm not out for some kind of vengeance and, certainly, if you have people in the field who are told here are the orders from the White House, here is a legal memo telling you what to do and how to do it.

Now, nobody is going to prosecute them, although, I would note that when FBI agents were there and they saw what was being done, when they reported back to the headquarters, FBI director Mueller said, "No, you can't do that. That violates our own rules. That violates our understanding of the law. You have to step back" -- and they did, till word got around.

What I want to know is this: Who were the people in the Office of Legal Counsel, in the President's Council office, even in the Justice Department who knew this was against the law and still told people to go and break the law? I am far more concerned about those people than I am going after somebody in the field.

And Leahy also mocks the fact that Cheney, the most secretive Vice President in history, is now calling for the release of secret memos.

The truth is that the Republicans are screaming like pigs, throwing every and any obstacle in the way of an investigation because the previous administration is as guilty as sin.

They know what they did. And they know why they did it. What they most fear is the rest of us ever getting to see the scale of their crimes, because they fear that, if we do, that the public might turn on them and demand prosecution.

“A large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq and we were not being successful.” As higher-ups got more “frustrated” at the inability to prove this connection, the major said, “there was more and more pressure to resort to measures” that might produce that intelligence.

I feel quite sure that if people ever realise that the Bush administration tortured people in order to get disinformation to enable the Iraq war to take place, that the outcry would be huge.

But, we must never forget that it was President Bush himself who called on the world to start "investigating and prosecuting all acts of torture".

Let's do as the man said.

Tags: Patrick Leahy, Bush, Cheney, torture, war criminals