Community | April 23, 2009 | 43 comments

Condoleezza Rice Gave OK to Waterboarding

source: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/22/timeline-released-senate-shows-condoleezza-rice-o...

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larkjl86
WASHINGTON -- As national security adviser to former President George W. Bush, Condoleezza Rice verbally approved the CIA's request to subject alleged Al Qaeda terrorist Abu Zubaydah to waterboarding in July 2002, the earliest known decision by a Bush administration official to OK use of the simulated drowning technique.

Rice's role was detailed in a narrative released Wednesday by the Senate Intelligence Committee. It provides the most detailed timeline yet for how the CIA's harsh interrogation program was conceived and approved at the highest levels in the Bush White House.

The new timeline shows that Rice played a greater role than she admitted last fall in written testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The narrative also shows that dissenting legal views about the severe interrogation methods were brushed aside repeatedly.

The Intelligence Committee's timeline comes a day after the Senate Armed Services Committee released an exhaustive report detailing direct links between the CIA's harsh interrogation program and abuses of prisoners at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in Afghanistan and at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

Both revelations follow President Barack Obama's release of internal Bush administration legal memos that justified the use of severe methods by the CIA, a move that kicked up a firestorm from opposing sides of the ideological spectrum.

According to the new narrative, which compiles legal advice provided by the Bush administration to the CIA, Rice personally conveyed the administration's approval for waterboarding of Zubaydah, a so-called high-value detainee, to then-CIA Director George Tenet in July 2002.

Last fall, Rice acknowledged to the Senate Armed Services Committee only that she had attended meetings where the CIA interrogation request was discussed and asked for the attorney general to conduct a legal review. She said she did not recall details. Rice omitted her direct role in approving the program in her written statement to the committee.

A spokesman for Rice declined comment when reached Wednesday.

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43 comments // Condoleezza Rice Gave OK to Waterboarding

  • Cynic2
  • Highr0ller
    • 0
      Highr0ller [removed]  
    • Image

    • "Gaza cannot sleep! The people are suffering unbelievably. They are hungry, thirsty, have no electricity or clean water. They are suffering constant bombardments and sonic booms from low flying aircraft. They need food: bread and water. Children and babies are hungry...people have no money to buy food. The price of food has doubled and tripled due to the situation. We cannot drink water from the ground here as it is salty and not hygienic. People must buy water to drink. They have no income, no opportunities to get food and water from outside and no opportunities to secure money inside of Gaza. They have no hope.

      "Without electricity children are afraid. No light at night. No oil or candles...Thirsty children are crying, afraid and desperate...Many children have been violently thrown from their beds at night from the sonic booms. Many arms and legs have been broken. These planes fly low over Gaza and then reach the speed of sound. This shakes the ground and creates shock waves like an earthquake that causes people to be thrown from their bed. I, myself weigh 120 kilos and was almost thrown from my bed due to the shock wave produced by a low flying jet that made a sonic boom.

      "Gaza cannot sleep...the cries of hungry children, the sullen faces of broken men and women who are just sitting in their hungry emptiness with no light, no hope, and no love. These actions are War Crimes!"

    • 3 years ago
  • unimatrix0
    • 0
      unimatrix0  
    • Highr0ller:

      the gaza spam is old and does not belong on this thread.

      when you just constantly post spam like this everywhere it does your cause no good. you simply come across as a zealot who can't play by the rules.

    • 3 years ago
  • unclecharlie
    • 0
      unclecharlie  

    • BooHooHoo! Waterboarding of terrorists? Well, it's not like they're human or anything! Any Taliban who gets captured needs to have all the juice extracted out of him, whether it be waterboarding or turning the screws....Amazing that those who would destroy this country, and those who turn themselves into human bombs deserve our pity or our sympathy. The Leftist socialist hippies, of course, believe that the Taliban should all be given a Nobel Peace Prize...it's those evil Americans that deserve to perish (Thank you, Ward Churchill) Let's all give them gold embossed Korans- then maybe they'll talk.......

    • 3 years ago
  • unimatrix0
  • Highr0ller
  • SHAWN_RITTIMAN
  • unimatrix0
    • 0
      unimatrix0  

    • Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and now Rice, all guilty of war crimes. All are guilty of violating US and international law. They have smeared the good name of the USA. We were supposed to be the good guys. By participating in torture the USA lost the any moral high ground - under Bush we were just another banana republic run by a gang of thugs.

      Thankfully President Obama and the Democrats are now in power. Let us hope they can repair some of the damage done to this great country by those foul Republican criminals.

    • 3 years ago
  • Venom7
  • unimatrix0
    • 0
      unimatrix0  
    • unimatrix0:

      Who is "we"?

      I thought "we" called those neo cons Republicans, because they are Republicans.

      Any attempt at revisionist history is foolish and embarrassing. Surely you Republicans can do better than that?

    • 3 years ago
  • Venom7
    • 0
      Venom7  
    • unimatrix0:

      1. By "We" I mean Americans.
      2. I'm not a republican.
      3. There are major differences between the interests of the "neo-cons" and those of the real republicans in this country.

      If you're going to use political labels, at least get them right.

    • 3 years ago
  • unimatrix0
    • 0
      unimatrix0  
    • unimatrix0:

      You are incorrect.

      Neo cons are Republicans. To try to say they were not Republicans is simply silly. They were not Dems, not Independents. They were Republicans. They ran and won as Republicans.

      As for political labels, you seem confused my friend.

    • 3 years ago
  • Venom7
    • 0
      Venom7  
    • unimatrix0:

      Well you have a point in the fact that they ran as republicans, but there is a conflict in ideology.

      If someone tells you they're a vegetarian and they eat meat, are they still a vegetarian?

      Its the same case here. These people say they're republicans, but they do not show the same ideology as republicans.

      "The party supports a conservative and/or center-right platform, with foundations in supply-side fiscal policies, social conservatism, and personal responsibility."

      http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/republican
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_(United_States)

      You're misrepresenting an entire population on the actions of the few.

      That is exactly what our government is doing to us (Americans) around the world. You dont like it much do you?

    • 3 years ago
  • unimatrix0
    • 0
      unimatrix0  
    • unimatrix0:

      The Republicans voted the neo cons in. Neo cons are Republicans. By any pragmatic definition, neo cons are Republicans.

      It was not a few Republicans who voted the neo cons in, it was a vast majority of Republicans who voted the neo cons in.

      Admit you are wrong and be done with it. You embarrass yourself with your ignorance.

      If you are not a Republican, why are you trying to rewrite history?

      I think the lady doth protest too much.

    • 3 years ago
  • Venom7
    • 0
      Venom7  
    • unimatrix0:

      Hmm.... It looks like you're having a hard time understanding what im trying to say.

      Here's the problem with your argument, you say that these criminals are Republicans AND Neo-Cons while the ideologies contradict eachother.

      That's like me saying im pro-personal responsibility, but I endorse torture and hostile invasions of other countries.

      Does that make any sense to you?

      Look, tagging on all these political labels to your comments make them hostile to the people they misrepresent. Republicans do it to democrats as well by putting the word "liberal" next to all the bullshit that comes out of the people who misrepresent that party. Some people are doing the same thing to the libertarian party.

      It would be nice if everyone stopped doing that.

    • 3 years ago
  • unimatrix0
    • 0
      unimatrix0  
    • unimatrix0:

      Hmm, it looks like you can't admit you are wrong.

      The neocons are a faction of the Republican party. Just as the religious right is a faction of the Republican party.

      f you want to say that Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld and Rice were not Republicans you are just blowing smoke up your arse.

      As a Democrat, I embrace the term liberal.

      The fact that you want the Republican party to be something else does not change the fact that since 9/11 it has been run by the neo con faction.

      The fact that you would want to argue this simple point is quite odd.

    • 3 years ago
  • artemis6
  • Highr0ller
    • 0
      Highr0ller [removed]  
    • Image

    • Can anyone be surprised to learn that the new guardians of these vast and unchecked powers, while piously promising to reform and stop breaking the law, also feel that there is no really compelling reason to enforce the law–in the process breaking the oaths they just took a few weeks ago to uphold that very law? Is it not indeed amazing that these claims can be made on the public stage without being greeted with the peals of derision they deserve? Now comes the test of our democracy–will we close the door and walk away, or demand to know what’s been done in our name and hold those who guided any abuses to account for their misconduct? President Obama tells us there’s nothing to see here, just move along. But this will be a test of whether we have a citizenry worthy of that name.

    • 3 years ago
  • Highr0ller
    • 0
      Highr0ller [removed]  

    • I am not defending the evil woman, BUT let's not forget she helped author the Israeli planned withdrawal from GAZA at the height of the genocide in Gaza in February.......................she was was publicly humiliated in front of the international community after receiving a phone call from George W.Bush (the son of Satan) telling her that the United States of America was to abstain from the vote....................a situation that allowed Israel to continue to rain WHITE PHOSPHOROUS etc. on top of the trapped civilian population in Gaza Strip.

      I make this point.....do not let BUSH, CHENEY, ROVE and the others pass the buck.....there will be no one ''fall guy''....they must all go down for their crimes.

    • 3 years ago
  • artemis6
  • Robroy1
  • Highr0ller
    • 0
      Highr0ller [removed]  

    • continued

      The CIA therefore proposed to lock the prisoner in a coffin-like box to which would be added an insect. Judge–yes, the author is a sitting appeals court judge in San Francisco–Jay Bybee’s memorandum discusses this process in detail and settles on a pre-agreed script about how Room 101 will be used, addressing in turn the toxicity of the insect to be used, the dimensions of the box in which the prisoner will be confined, and the false statements which will be made to the prisoner in order to heighten his level of apprehension, with the intention of triggering a “panic attack.” Not surprisingly, George Orwell’s ultimate form of torture is perfectly fine for Judge Bybee—he raises no objection, as is the case with waterboarding, hypothermia, “walling” (a technique that involves bashing the prisoner’s head against a wall), and a number of other techniques that belong to the long-settled torture repertoire of such regimes as the Soviet Union, North Korea, China and North Vietnam. But for Judge Bybee, if the CIA wants to use these techniques, that’s all fine with him–no law stands in the way.

      Orwell made his second appearance in a statement issued by Director of National Intelligence Admiral Dennis Blair in which he drew a stomach-turning comparison between Americans who sacrifice for their country in uniform and those who perpetrated war crimes under orders from higher ups in the Bush Administration. But perhaps the first lines of Blair’s statement were intended to send a signal of the deceit that lay within. “We will absolutely defend those who relied on these memos and those guidelines,” he says, because they acted in the wake of 9/11, whereas “read on a bright, sunny, safe day in April 2009, [the memoranda] appear graphic and disturbing.” Blair’s name echoes Orwell’s actual name, Eric Blair; his words remind one of 1984: “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”

    • 3 years ago
  • Highr0ller
    • 0
      Highr0ller [removed]  

    • Bush Torture Memos
      Revealing the Secrets in Room 101
      By Scott Horton
      In the first of the four memos, we learn that one prisoner has been the subject of a careful psychoanalysis that had revealed a strong fear of insects, particularly stinging insects. The sudden onset of a phobia can produce automatic, uncontrollable reactions-the fear grips total control of the subject's mind.

    • 3 years ago
  • eldamon
  • artemis6
  • Ayahuasca2012
    • 0
      Ayahuasca2012  

    • OMG! RLY!

      But seriously... I didn't see this coming... not at all... ever... I am so fucking surprised I just never would have thought that woman capable of such an act... Condoleeza Rice supported torture? OMGZ! Ok... so maybe I'm being sarcastic... why would anyone be surprised? She was a total fucking bitch and this is probably only the tip of the debauchery and heinous fuckery she was involved in and the same goes for Bush.

      Can we just hang Bush, Cheney, Rice and a couple more of their friends right out in front of the Whitehouse and leave them there to show the world what we do to people that abuse their power??? Please!!!

    • 3 years ago
  • fun_size
    • 0
      fun_size  
    • Ayahuasca2012:

      "Can we just hang Bush, Cheney, Rice and a couple more of their friends right out in front of the Whitehouse and leave them there to show the world what we do to people that abuse their power??? Please!!!"

      Yeah right? Waterboarding is soooo barbaric.

    • 3 years ago
  • Ayahuasca2012
    • 0
      Ayahuasca2012  
    • Ayahuasca2012:

      Alright... if it's so humane how about we meet up and I waterboard you around 200 times... see how fun it is!

      Torture isn't right and it's against our own laws and those of most of the modern world. Do you think that the whole they could possibly kill or injure Americans if we don't torture them till they cave and make something up excuse is a vaild reason to break laws?

      You know what... I'm talking to a wall... forget it. Bush and Co. committed some of the most heinous acts ever witnessed in our modern age and here you are defending it. Fucking morons... why do most Americans have to be fucking morons... Enjoy your hell... you helped create it.

    • 3 years ago
  • fun_size
    • 0
      fun_size  
    • Ayahuasca2012:

      Wow lol all i was saying is that compared to waterboarding hanging a bunch of people and leaving their rotting corpses out in front of the most important building in America is rather barbaric. Which it is. And you flipped a shit because i even mentioned the word waterboarding. You should definitely relax there buddy before you hurt yourself.

      I dont disagree that waterboarding is torture although i have to say that as far as torture goes its rather polite(leaves no markings, no permanent damage,etc.) although it must totally suck balls while you're going through it.

    • 3 years ago
  • clownpuncher
    • 0
      clownpuncher  

    • Jesus, can we send the Liberals to Afghanistan unarmed. I want to see what their definition of torture is when and if they were to return. For crying out loud.

    • 3 years ago
  • 02
  • cybexg
  • SHAWN_RITTIMAN
  • SHAWN_RITTIMAN
  • Maeveeo
    • 0
      Maeveeo  

    • I knew it knew it knew it & she did not tell how deep she was in this crap more than likely up to her ugly lneck in it ! Between George & Dick I would have never thought
      Rice would be added to the list , she should have bounced with POWELL maybe she would be better off !

    • 3 years ago
  • el_chivo
  • uroborus8
  • current89
  • larkjl86
    • 0
      larkjl86  

    • "The United States government does not authorize or condone torture of detainees. Torture, and conspiracy to commit torture, are crimes under US law, wherever they may occur in the world" - Condoleezza Rice

    • 3 years ago
  • Highr0ller
    • 0
      Highr0ller [removed]  
    • larkjl86:

      sorry....usa has all these laws. I can tell you many laws they break....from bribery etc. to supplying Saddam Hussein with military intelligence, arms and funding.

      Smoke and mirrors.

      I used to work (at one time) for Hank Wharton. He is dead now.....he told me he never carried out an operation without the OK from the government of the USA.....................when the USA were not doing something themselves OFFICIALLY they asked Hank to do it.

      I point out that y job did not bring me into any shady operations knowingly...............but I was privy to information.

      Real life dealings give a lot of thriller novels a run for their money.

    • 3 years ago
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