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Bush Approved Torture in Secret Memos

By possum

As many have long suspected we get news today that what we thought is confirmed.

The Bush administration issued a pair of secret memos to the CIA in 2003 and 2004 that explicitly endorsed the agency's use of interrogation techniques such as waterboarding against al-Qaeda suspects

The memos were signed to protect the interests of people worried about future prosecution for their actions.  
The secrets remain largely hidden from public view.

Administration officials confirmed the existence of the memos, but neither they nor former intelligence officers would describe their contents in detail because they remain classified. The sources all spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not cleared to discuss the events.

The memos were signed in spite of reservations expressed both by people in the administration and by others.  Torture in general is not a productive interrogation course as many have shown over the course of time.

According to insiders

Tenet seemed more interested in protecting his subordinates than in selling the administration on a policy that administration lawyers had already authorized.

The CIA supported the techniques in spite of internal reservations.

The CIA's anxiety was partly fueled by the lack of explicit presidential authorization for the interrogation program. A secret White House "memorandum of notification" signed by Bush on Sept. 15, 2001, gave the agency broad authority to wage war against al-Qaeda, including killing and capturing its members. But it did not spell out how captives should be handled during interrogation.

The memo in mid-July, 2004 relieved that anxiety and set the United States on the course of destruction we still see in effect.

Peace.

Full post as published by Never In Our Names on October 15, 2008 (boomark / email).