Friday, April 24, 2009

Torture Round-Up 2

Condoleezza Rice, John D. Ashcroft and other top Bush administration officials approved as early as the summer of 2002 the CIA's use at secret prisons of harsh interrogation methods, including waterboarding... Rice gave a key early green light when, as President George W. Bush's national security adviser, she met on July 17, 2002, with the CIA's then-director, George J. Tenet, and "advised that the CIA could proceed with its proposed interrogation of Abu Zubaida," subject to approval by the Justice Department, according to the timeline.

Torture planning began in 2001, Senate report reveals-- Bush officials said they only tortured terrorists after they wouldn't talk. New evidence shows they planned torture soon after 9/11 -- and used it to find links between al-Qaida and Saddam.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is on the defensive after her Republican counterpart John Boehner (R-OH) claimed that top Democrats knew well the details of the Bush administration's torture program but did nothing to stop it. In a Thursday press briefing, Pelosi flatly denied that she was ever told waterboarding would be used.

Cheney's lies:
ALI SOUFAN-- FOR seven years I have remained silent about the false claims magnifying the effectiveness of the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding. I have spoken only in closed government hearings, as these matters were classified. But the release last week of four Justice Department memos on interrogations allows me to shed light on the story, and on some of the lessons to be learned.

Yikes: Detainee's lawyer claims U.S. interrogators applied pepper spray to prisoner's hemorrhoids...

Ex-trainer: Government officials think interrogation is like TV's '24'

Glenn Greenwald: how the media enable and cover-up war-crimes.


Flashback: FBI agents kept away from torturing suspects

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