Mike Ritz, former U.S. Army interrogation instructor, Melina Milazzo, advocacy counsel for Human Rights First’s law and security program, and Jim Clemente, former FBI supervisory special agent, join “Viewpoint” host Eliot Spitzer to discuss new claims from former CIA Deputy Director for Operations Jose Rodriguez — on the heels of his book tour — that illegal techniques like waterboarding were necessary to locate Osama bin Laden. In response to whether or not the Justice Department and Office of Legal Counsel wrote the “torture memos” to create a veil of protection around people who were committing torture in order to prevent subsequent prosecutions, Jim Clemente says this doesn’t exonerate Rodriguez or any other soldier: “I think that basically on their face, anybody who has any knowledge of the law, and certainly Mr. Rodriguez should have had such knowledge, would know that these were not substantiated, that they did not have any support in the law and in the history and the precedent,” says Clemente.
