AP: Cheney Approved Harsh Interrogations

Senior Intel Officials Say Controversial Techniques OKd At Top-Level White House Meetings

Bush administration officials from Vice President Dick Cheney on down signed off on using harsh interrogation techniques against suspected terrorists after asking the Justice Department to endorse their legality, The Associated Press has learned.

The officials also took care to insulate President Bush from a series of meetings where CIA interrogation methods, including waterboarding, which simulates drowning, were discussed and ultimately approved.

Between 2002 and 2003, the Justice Department issued several memos from its Office of Legal Counsel that justified using the interrogation tactics, including ones that critics call torture.

The meetings were held in the White House Situation Room in the years immediately following the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001. Attending the sessions were then-Bush aides Attorney General John Ashcroft, Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.

The White House, Justice and State departments and the CIA refused comment Thursday, as did a spokesman for Tenet. A message for Ashcroft was not immediately returned.

The American Civil Liberties Union called on Congress to investigate.

"With each new revelation, it is beginning to look like the torture operation was managed and directed out of the White House," ACLU legislative director Caroline Fredrickson said. 

The former intelligence official described Cheney and the top national security officials as deeply immersed in developing the CIA's interrogation program during months of discussions over which methods should be used and when.

At times, CIA officers would demonstrate some of the tactics, or at least detail how they worked, to make sure the small group of "principals" fully understood what the al Qaeda detainees would undergo. The principals eventually authorized physical abuse such as slaps and pushes, sleep deprivation, or waterboarding. This technique involves strapping a person down and pouring water over his cloth-covered face to create the sensation of drowning.

Not all of the principals who attended were fully comfortable with the White House meetings.

The ABC News report portrayed Ashcroft as troubled by the discussions, despite agreeing that the interrogations methods were legal.

"Why are we talking about this in the White House?" the network quoted Ashcroft as saying during one meeting. "History will not judge this kindly."
 
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/11/national/main4008207.shtml
 
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{ "Torture".......is there an uglier word in the English language? It brings to mind the atrocities we associate with the Nazis or Stalin and more recent monsters of depravity such as Paul Pot and Edi Amin Dada. Thank God such things could never happen in America.

Or could they?

It's shocking to realize that the highest officials of the Bush administration were engaged in planning and carrying out torture. They knew it was wrong or why would they try and isolate Bush from it? It's equally as shocking that some people are splitting hairs by trying to claim the torture "wasn't all that bad".  I guess they feel this torture being done in all of our names is less disgusting because other governments have done worse. It's sort of like shooting someone in the back of the head and then saying " Come on, that wasn't so bad. Some people would have shot him right in the face!"

Of course if more drastic forms of torture were needed prisoners could be sent to "friendly" countries where torture was part of their culture and no big deal.

How convenient.

Few things show the moral bankruptcy of the Bush/Cheney administration then this. The idea that our government would act like Mafia thugs in the name of "national security" is appalling and repulsive. They are likely to get away with it as well. Who is going to bring them to justice? What can be done? Will no one in this administration ever be held accountable for their actions?

What do you think?}

Rose