A gapline (TM) is a kind of timeline that focuses on what's still missing in the known sequence of events. Think of it as a guide for where to look next.
This gapline is intended to help us work out Cheney's involvement in the torture history. Unlike my earlier timelines on the topic, this one will try to be concise. Given the amount of material already revealed, that may not be easy.
[Cue Rod Serling....]
11 Sep 2001 Terrorists hijack 4 places. Cheney, possibly on his own authority, order the fourth plane shot down. [This shows Cheney's mindset, reaction to events, and willingness to act on his own, though he has no position in the chain of command.]
16 Sep 2001 Five days after the worst attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor, Cheney goes on Meet the Press. He quite candidly talks about having to work "the dark side" employing "some very unsavory characters" and that we cannot "tie[] the hands" of intelligence officials.
[GAP 1] It appears that Cheney came up with this on his own, that is, without consulting any intelligence or interrogation professionals. We know that by this time, Richard Clarke, the national counter-terrorism adviser, has told the administration that "al-Qa'ida was to blame [for the WTC attacks] and there was no hint of Iraqi involvement."
[GAP 2] Watching Rachel Maddow interview Philip Zelikow, who testified to the Senate subcommittee today (no link to the interview, but here is a Word doc of his prepared testimony), I picked up the information that the CIA was looking into new interrogation techniques late in 2001. Zelikow did not know what - or who - prompted the CIA to do this. We do know that Cheney was a frequent visitor to CIA headquarters starting sometime after Sep 2001.
[HINT] A 25 Jun 2007 WaPo story on Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004) describes Cheney as having "pioneered a novel distinction between forbidden 'torture' and permitted use of 'cruel, inhuman or degrading' methods of questioning" as far back as 11 Jan 2002.
From that moment, well before previous accounts have suggested, Cheney turned his attention to the practical business of crushing a captive's will to resist. The vice president's office played a central role in shattering limits on coercion of prisoners in U.S. custody, commissioning and defending legal opinions that the Bush administration has since portrayed as the initiatives, months later, of lower-ranking officials. [Emphases added]
Dec 2001 DoD officials led by General Counsel William Haynes request the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA) to provide information on SERE training tactics, which include waterboarding.
[GAP] Cheney's direct involvement in this request is not yet known. However, Haynes has been an associate of Cheney's since he was Secretary of Defense.
Jan 2002 SERE psychologists begin plans to train CIA operatives in interrogation techniques that North Koreans and Chinese have been known to use on our troops.
Jan-Aug 2002 White House and Office of Legal Counsel lawyers write a series of memos claiming that captured Al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives are not subject to the Geneva Conventions, and that the CIA can use "enhanced interrogation techniques" to extract information from them, including waterboarding.
Feb-Aug 2002 Other administration officials write memos arguing against the position in memos listed above.
[GAP] The memos are ignored. It is possible that this was done at the direction of Haynes (see above), but that has not yet been determined.
April 2002 According to reports of a court filing, the CIA now begins to torture high-value detainees.
May 2002 CIA director George Tenet brief Cheney and others on the methods the CIA intends to use. According to one report, waterboarding was specifically mentioned at a May meeting where Rice was present, but it is not clear if that is the same meeting that Cheney attended.
[HINT] There is a strong suggestion that Cheney had a role in the Bradbury memos.
24, 26 Jul 2002 OLC gives oral approval to the CIA to use enhanced interrogation techniques, and follows it up with a written memo on 1 Aug 2002 (the Yoo/Bybee memo). [GAP?] There is a curious sequence here: OLC gave oral assurances on 24 Jul for most techniques, but not waterboarding. That was cleared in the second oral communication on 26 Jul, leading to the suggestion that OLC initially rejected waterboarding and then changed its mind.
Aug 2002-Mar 2003 Cheney and Rumsfeld repeatedly pressure the CIA to come up with evidence linking Iraq's Saddam Hussein with Al-Qaeda. (See also here, page 72.)
3 Mar 2003 Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) is captured in Pakistan. He is waterboarded 183 times during the month of March. On 20 Mar 2003, Bush announces that the invasion of Iraq has begun.
7 May 2004 The CIA inspector general issues a detailed report, not yet released (but soon, we hope) documenting the torture of detainees and showing that it did not produce any useful information that was not also obtained by other, lawful means.
Jun 2004 Asst. Attorney General Jack Goldsmith orders the Yoo/Bybee memos from 2002 withdrawn. Under pressure from Cheney's chief counsel, David Addington, Goldsmith is then forced to resign.
May 2005 Steven Bradbury of the OLC issues new memos (PDF, PDF and PDF) replacing the Yoo/Bybee memos and providing new justifications for torture.
[GAP] It appears that from June 2004 to May 2005, there was no legal cover for using enhanced interrogation techniques. Were they ever used during this period?
Late 2005 Philip Zelikow, a State Dept. lawyer, writes a memo criticizing the Bradbury legal reasoning. The White House attempts to collect and destroy all copies of the memo, a move Zelikow [GAP] suspects was instigated by Cheney. In testimony Wednesday before Sen. Whitehouse's committee, Zelikow revealed that a copy of the memo has been found in State Dept. files and may be released shortly. (The 2005 date is from Zelikow's Foreign Policy article. In his testimony [Word doc] to the subcommittee, he says he thinks it may have been Feb 2006.)
Oct 2005-Jan 2006 Congress adopts the McCain amendment to a military spending bill which limits the techniques that can be used on detainees. Cheney attempts to derail the amendment, but fails. Then when Bush signs the bill, he adds a signing statement which effectively nullifies the amendment.
24 Oct 2005 During the battle over the McCain amendment, Cheney calls waterboarding a "no-brainer" in an interview with a conservative talk-show host. His office then denies he was talking about waterboarding.
15 Dec 2008 In an interview with ABC, Cheney admits, perhaps for the first time, that the United States engaged in waterboarding. Asked if he had "authorized" the techniques used on KSM, Cheney dodges the question. In a second interview 3 days later with the Washington Times, Cheney says that only 3 detainees were waterboarded, although a total of 33 were subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques of some kind.
10 May 2009 In an interview with CBS's Face the Nation, Cheney admits, perhaps for the first time, that former President Bush "basically authorized" the torture program.
13 May 2009 In testimony to the Senate, Ali Soufan, the FBI agent who originally interrogated Abu Zubaydeh before the CIA, explains how got useful information from Abu Zubaydeh using standard interrogation tactics that did not include torture. He had previously made the same argument in a New York Times op-ed.
13 May 2009 At the Senate subcommittee hearing on torture, Sen. Lindsey Graham appears to suggest that Cheney was the one who decided which detainees were sent to Guantanamo.