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New Torture Report Details Bushies' Role
J. David Ake / AP Photo
Eric Holder today declassified a confidential Senate report that provides a more detailed narrative of the role top Bush officials, including Condoleezza Rice, John Ashcroft, and the president himself, played in approving interrogation methods.
The torture scandal became even more explosive on Wednesday with Attorney General Eric Holder’s quiet approval of the release of a bombshell Senate Intelligence Committee report to provide “an initial narrative of the history of the opinions of the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel, from 2002 to 2007, on the legality of the Central Intelligence Agency’s detention and interrogation program.”
The report makes clear that many of the key discussions about interrogation took place months before the White House prepared legal memos “authorizing” those techniques.
The report conclusively confirms that senior members of the Bush administration were personally briefed and approved the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques in 2002 and again in 2003, which as previously reported included waterboarding, prolonged sleep deprivation, throwing detainees into walls, and placing them in small boxes with insects, among other abuses.
One key passage, with bracketed names added by The Daily Beast, documents those directly involved in the decision-making:
“[The] CIA’s Office of General Counsel [this would include current Acting CIA General Counsel John Rizzo] met with the Attorney General [John Ashcroft], the National Security Adviser [Condoleezza Rice], the Deputy National Security Adviser [Stephen Hadley], the Legal Adviser to the National Security Council [John Bellinger], and the Counsel to the President [Alberto Gonzales] in mid-May 2002 to discuss the possible use of alternative interrogation methods [on Abu Zubaydah] that differed from the traditional methods used by the U.S. military and intelligence community. At this meeting, the CIA proposed particular alternative interrogation methods, including waterboarding.”
The report continues to implicate more Bush officials:
“On July 13, 2002, according to CIA records, attorneys from the CIA’s Office of General Counsel [including Rizzo] met with the Legal Adviser to the National Security Council [Bellinger], a Deputy Assistant Attorney General from OLC [likely John Yoo], the head of the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice [Michael Chertoff], the chief of staff to the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation [Kenneth Wainstein], and the Counsel to the President [Alberto Gonzales] to provide an overview of the proposed interrogation plan for Abu Zubaydah.”
The Senate Intelligence Committee “narrative” directly points to then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice in particular as the person who gave the first approval for the use of torture techniques on behalf of the White House: “On July 17, 2002, according to CIA records, the Director of Central Intelligence [George Tenet] met with the National Security Adviser [Condoleezza Rice], who advised that the CIA could proceed with its proposed interrogation of Abu Zubaydah.”
The report confirms earlier reporting by ABC News. It also adds important details about how the CIA obtained a “reaffirmation” of the approved interrogation techniques in 2003 and later in 2004.
On and on the report goes, naming Bush people in those meetings:
“In the spring of 2003, the DCI [Tenet] asked for a reaffirmation of the policies and practices in the interrogation program. In July 2003, according to CIA records, the NSC Principals met to discuss the interrogation techniques employed in the CIA program. According to CIA records, the DCI and the CIA’s General Counsel attended a meeting with the Vice President [Dick Cheney], the National Security Adviser [Rice], the Attorney General [Ashcroft], the Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, a Deputy Assistant Attorney General, the Counsel to the President [Gonzales, again], and the Legal Adviser to the National Security Council [Bellinger, again] to describe the CIA’s interrogation techniques, including waterboarding. According to CIA records, at the conclusion of that meeting, the Principals reaffirmed that the CIA program was lawful and reflected administration policy.”
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Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
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Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Jeff Madrick is a contributor to the New York Review of Books and a former economics columnist for the New York Times. He is editor of Challenge Magazine, visiting professor of humanities at Cooper Union, and senior fellow at the New School's Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis. He is the author of Taking America, The End of Affluence (Random House) and The Case for Big Government.
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John Sifton is a private investigator and attorney based in New York City. His firm, One World Research, carries out research for law firms and human rights groups, including in South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. He has conducted extensive investigations into the CIA interrogation and detention program.
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John Sifton is a private investigator and attorney based in New York City. His firm, One World Research, carries out research for law firms and human rights groups, including in South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. He has conducted extensive investigations into the CIA interrogation and detention program.
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John Sifton is a private investigator and attorney based in New York City. His firm, One World Research, carries out research for law firms and human rights groups, including in South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. He has conducted extensive investigations into the CIA interrogation and detention program.
And Obama has wanted to let them all go free.What a shame on his part.And very disappointing as well.
He's too busy cleaning up their catastrophic 8 years in power.
Excellent. And as one with no party affiliation my hope is that this carries back as far as can be traced and into all reaches of discussion related to the direct or implied approval. In the recent past it would include, beyond the folks mentioned here, all members of Congress that reviewed and agreed, or did nothing to stop any wrong-doing, if, in fact wrong-doing did take place. That list would then grow to include, Feinstein, Rockefeller, and Pelosi at a minimum. Since the President has opened the bag, half a cat cannot be released. Since Secretary Holder's comments in recent years directly spoke to this issue, he will make an excellent witness, or party to the circumstance. Best of all, this distraction will consume time Congress would have spent fixing the economy so, without their help, the recession will likely end sooner than current projections.
Anyone surprised?
Nope....
And they have their top 'official' attack-dog, Cheney, barking and barking. This after the barking of Rush has done nothing to turn the public's favor.
Why would the GOP think that Cheney should be the one leading this fight? One of the most unpopular guys leading a futile defense? They have to be doing this all on purpose, right? Letting the 'old guard' go down swinging so the 'new' faces can come to the forefront?
What I do know is things are coming to a 'head'. I think we all can feel it... know it's heading this way... maybe can't admit that things could possibly go 'that' wrong in the good 'ol US of A... not in this age, anyway.
I'm not a survivalist. I didn't stock up for Y2K. I can't skin a buck or make a booby-trap. But what I can do is maybe stock up on some non-parishable goods. That NEVER hurts.
This is where the teflon on these scum finally wears off. There is no way that our current administration and the rest of the world can just pretend like nothing happened. These are direct violations of the Geneva conventions. There are so many crimes that the Bush abomination needs to be prosecuted for, but this is what will finally bring these worms to justice. TORTURE IS UNACCEPTABLE TO ALL CITIZENS OF PLANET EARTH. They are not above the laws of humanity. Prosecute and punish all of them.
Let's just say that looking forward not looking back is the way to go. All you have to do is read any newspaper or turn on any cable or broadcast TV news program, except for Fox News, and you will find numerous compelling arguments for investigations and prosecutions for the possible unethical or criminal behavior of the Bush/Cheney Administration save one. Some 8,000 people are appointed to positions in a new Administration. The Obama Administration has only filled a fraction of those jobs. As the Bush/Cheney people move out and the Obama people move in, given the heavy-handed leadership/management style of the Bush/Cheney people, we've only seen the tip of the iceberg of wrongdoing. As in dealing with forces of nature, it is better to cooperate with Mother Nature than fight her. The Obama Administration will have to exert an enormous amount of energy to keep wrongdoing from surfacing. Assume that they mightily resist the surfacing of wrongdoing. Does anyone actually believe that the likes of Dick Cheney, Eric Cantor, Newt Gingrich, and Rush Limbaugh are going to cut them an ounce of slack? It's not going to happen. Cooperate with the nature of the beast. The Obama Administration should investigate and prosecute wrongdoing. That does not mean they have to do it enthusiastically or that they have to investigate and/or prosecute everything that surfaces. Doing nothing is fighting Mother Nature. ~ richard allbritton, Miami http://rallbritton.blogspot.com/
Question: Which president had suspended the writ of habeas corpus, closed the most newspapers, arrested the most political rivals, opened and censored the most mail and executed the most American citizens without trial.
Answer: The "Great Emancipator" Abraham Lincoln
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You have 9 mentions of race in that post. It's interfering with your thought process.I have no idea of what the hell you're talking about.
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Written in January 2005, this article written by Andrew Sullivan, "Atrocities in Plain Sight" ,makes abundantly clear the complicitness and ambiguity of the decistion-making of Bush and his top officials when trying to weave their policy towards prisoners in Guantanamo and other facilities. They knew the Geneva Convention was a hurdle to jump to justify torture and brutal interrogation. There is even mention of "the two sanctioned cases of expanded interrogation techniques at Guantánamo." We can easily speculate as to their identity given what we know now.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/13/books/review/books-sullivan.html?pagew anted=1&sq=new%20york%20review%20of%20books&st=cse&scp=6
The term "Bushies" just shows that you will get a one-sided argument from this article. We should have an honest debate, not a polarizing, demeaning one.
Thank you.
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