Terrorism
Bush Administration Issued Secret Memos Approving Waterboarding
Posted Oct 15, 2008 4:52 AM CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
The Bush administration issued secret memos in 2003 and 2004 telling CIA officials that it approved waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques for al-Qaida suspects.
The memos remain classified, but four anonymous administration and intelligence officials told the Washington Post they existed. The documents were issued in response to concerns among intelligence officials that the White House would later distance itself from decisions about the handling of detainees.
When the first memo was issued, the CIA was already holding nine detainees in secret prisons, the story says. Three of the prisoners had been subjected to waterboarding.
The Justice Department had previously approved the CIA’s practices, but CIA officials wanted a written endorsement from White House policymakers, according to the Post account. In meetings before the second administration memo was issued, some participants appeared uncomfortable with graphic descriptions of the interrogations, the story says. One of them was Attorney General John Ashcroft, who was quoted in Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side as saying, “History will not judge us kindly.”
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Comments
Nikos Retsos
Oct 15, 2008 6:13 AM CST
George Bush has publicly declared that “the
United States government does practice nor condone torture.” Then, he has repeatedly said that “the terrorists hate us for out freedom, and for our democracy.” If torture is part of our democracy, we should put it in our constitution with a new Constitutional Amendment. We cannot put a facade of democracy below our flag, and behave like barbarians behind it.
Then, George Bush claimed that it was necessary to overthrow Saddam Hussein because he was torturing and killing his people. But George Bush does the same by ordering the torture of foreign nationals, and the bombing and killing of civilians in both Afghanistan and Pakistan villages on suspicion
that the MIGHT be Talibans.
It is quite hypocritical for American politicians to
make speeches and say “this is a great country; we are the greatest democracy, and nobody is above the law,” while behind the scenes we are engaged in clandestine global torture and senseless killing of civilians. And even worse than that is the duplicitous U.S. propaganda that insists that Sudan’s president
Omar should be indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes in Darfur.
Now we know why the U.S. has not signed the participating treaty of the International
Criminal Court, nor the treaty of the Civil and Political Rights of the International Human Rights Commission. Shame on us, and on our hypocritical democracy. Nikos Retsos, retired Pol. Sci. and History professor.
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J.D.
Oct 15, 2008 8:39 AM CST
Yes, we should abolish our constitution and the Supreme Court and put all Americans under the control of a foreign, unaccountable court that is stocked full of radical, socialist, America-hating leftists.
And we should have just let Saddam continue to gas people to death and throw them in mass graves. That’s cool.
Why is it that no one seems to ask how many deaths have been prevented by dunking a jihadist’s head in water?
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RT
Oct 15, 2008 10:38 AM CST
Sadly, this is not news because our current administration fought so hard to avoid calling waterboarding torture. They knew these documents existed.
I expect that President Bush’s list of pardons will be long and infamous.
As to JD’s comment here about “dunking a head in water” saving lives - torture is illegal, immoral and ineffective. Perhaps there is a reason the Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment?
IF the US supports torture, then logically we CANNOT OPPOSE the torture of OUR Troops and citizens by others. Outside of its reprehensible nature, that is the greatest danger of torture.
ALSO, torture has been repeatedly proven not to work. If it was so good at gathering information, then perhaps all American police forces should use it? Perhaps this will be the new American way to solve all crimes even those which didnt occur. DWI? torture the confession. Perhaps the next time you get stopped for speeding, an officer could slap a on a thumbscrew and twist your thumb until you confess?
Torture was thrown out in the Spainish Inquisition over 400 years ago as an ineffective means of finding truth. We should learn from history rather than working so hard to ignore it.
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