Waterboarding // Current TV

Condoleezza Rice Gave OK to Waterboarding

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.

More in Fox News articleWASHINGTON -- As national security adviser to former President George W. Bush,... more

larkjl86
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2 Prisoners Waterboarded 266 Times!

C.I.A. interrogators used waterboarding, the near-drowning technique that top Obama administration officials have described as illegal torture, 266 times on two key prisoners from Al Qaeda, FAR more than had been previously reported.

The C.I.A. officers used waterboarding at least 83 times in August 2002 against Abu Zubaydah, according to a 2005 Justice Department legal memorandum. Abu Zubaydah has been described as a Qaeda operative.

A former C.I.A. officer, John Kiriakou, told ABC News and other news media organizations in 2007 that Abu Zubaydah had undergone waterboarding for only 35 seconds before agreeing to tell everything he knew.

The 2005 memo also says that the C.I.A. used waterboarding 183 times in March 2003 against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described planner of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The New York Times reported in 2007 that Mr. Mohammed had been barraged more than 100 times with harsh interrogation methods, causing C.I.A. officers to worry that they might have crossed legal limits and to halt his questioning. But the precise number and the exact nature of the interrogation method was not previously known.

The new information on the number of waterboarding episodes came out over the weekend when a number of bloggers, including Marcy Wheeler of the blog emptywheel, discovered it in the May 30, 2005, memo.

The sentences in the memo containing that information appear to have been redacted from some copies but are visible in others. Initial news reports about the memos in The New York Times and other publications did not include the numbers.

Michael V. Hayden, director of the C.I.A. for the last two years of the Bush administration, would not comment when asked on the program “Fox News Sunday” if Mr. Mohammed had been waterboarded 183 times. He said he believed that that information was still classified.

A C.I.A. spokesman, reached Sunday night, also would not comment on the new information.

I believe earlier reports said that waterboarding had only used 3 times TOTAL.C.I.A. interrogators used waterboarding, the near-drowning technique that top Obama... more

Future_America
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ACTION ALERT! Demand indictment of Bush Administration Officials on Torture!!

It has been the massive pressure from the people that has put the prosecution of Bush-era officials on the agenda. As expected, there is a countervailing campaign from the neo-cons and their apologists. Now, the Obama administration has opted to try to shield Bush administration officials who are guilty of torture and war crimes. We cannot and will not let up.

TIME TO TAKE ACTION!

Tens of thousands of you have flooded government officials with the demand for criminal prosecution. The people of this country and the world are standing up to demand justice. We reject the idea that Bush administration officials who ordered torture and crafted legal justification for the most barbaric and inhumane practices should escape criminal prosecution.

With the popular will of the people growing in support of prosecution, President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder just assured officials in the CIA that those agents who carried out torture will not be prosecuted by Justice Department lawyers, but rather will be defended by them. This announcement does not stop legal actions against torturers from going forward, or stop Congressional investigation, however, as the Justice Department does not have the authority to do so.

President Obama said: "This is a time for reflection, not retribution. ... nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past." By this logic, the Justice Department should prosecute no one, ever. This flies in the face of internationally and nationally recognized human rights laws that prohibit torture. The International Red Cross has issued a report insisting on prosecution of Bush administration officials.

The Red Cross report provides in graphic detail the shocking and sickening methods of torture executed by U.S. officials. These methods are also described in legal papers authored by Bush administration officials and lawyers who sadisticly wrote up and authorized details of torture - papers that are being revealed today at the same time as the White House attempts to stop prosecution of torturers.

As they are exonerating CIA torturers, the administration is also putting intense pressure on the Spanish Government not to proceed with the criminal prosecution of former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and five other officials of the Bush administration, including those who wrote the torture authorizations.

This battle is just opening up. There were also attempts by various governments to shield Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet at first - attempts that ultimately crumbled.It has been the massive pressure from the people that has put the prosecution of... more

asherp
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Planner of 9/11 attacks, waterboarded 183 times

WASHINGTON, April 19 (Reuters) - CIA interrogators used the waterboarding technique on... more

ClipsFC
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3 years ago
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61 comments

Key planner for 9/11 Waterboarded 183 times by CIA

Deemed as a legal method of interrogation and NOT torture by Bush after Sept 11th, the... more

JCollier
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3 years ago
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7 comments

Cheney to host waterboarding finals

NEW YORK — ESPN has entered into an agreement with former vice president Dick... more

TheSkunk
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3 years ago
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No charges against CIA officials for waterboarding

WASHINGTON – Seeking to move beyond what he calls a "a dark and painful... more

Syree
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3 years ago
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0 comments

Spain rules out torture probe of U.S. officials

Spanish human right lawyer Gonzalo Boye's bid to go after the Bush... more

bansheewail
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3 years ago
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4 comments

CIA employees won't be tried for waterboarding

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration on Thursday informed CIA officials who used... more

bansheewail
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3 years ago
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5 comments

Obama: No Charges Against CIA Officials for Waterboarding

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is telling CIA officials who used... more

ClipsFC
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3 years ago
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1 comment

Red Cross says, CIA medics joined in Guantánamo torture sessions

Medical personnel committed a "gross breach of medical ethics" by taking... more

bansheewail
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3 years ago
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2 comments

Tortured Gitmo Detainee Released To Great Britain

Binyam Mohamed has been held in Guantanamo since September 2004 and claims he has been... more

Future_America
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3 years ago
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0 comments

Mumbai terror suspect 'tortured with sex'

With all the backlash against waterboarding, it seems US authorities may have found a... more

richjm
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3 years ago
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61 comments

Attorney General Eric Holder: Waterboarding is torture.

Attorney General-nominee Eric Holder forcefully broke from the Bush... more

Jonathonish
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3 years ago
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2 comments

Will Obama Look Into Bush War Crimes?

On ABC News' This Week with George Stephanopoulos this morning, George asks... more

thedismembermentplan
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3 years ago
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0 comments

BBC to screen Spooks actor undergoing waterboarding

An actor in Spooks will actually be subjected to a form of torture. The BBC is to push... more

Mr_Costello
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3 years ago
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10 comments

Fear and waterboarding in Santa Monica |

What the News isn't showing America

hrhpod
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CIA Tactics Endorsed In Secret Memos

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 -- documents prompted by worries among intelligence officials about a possible backlash if details of the program became public.

The classified memos, which have not been previously disclosed, were requested by then-CIA Director George J. Tenet more than a year after the start of the secret interrogations, according to four administration and intelligence officials familiar with the documents. Although Justice Department lawyers, beginning in 2002, had signed off on the agency's interrogation methods, senior CIA officials were troubled that White House policymakers had never endorsed the program in writing.

The memos were the first -- and, for years, the only -- tangible expressions of the administration's consent for the CIA's use of harsh measures to extract information from captured al-Qaeda leaders, the sources said. As early as the spring of 2002, several White House officials, including then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Vice President Cheney, were given individual briefings by Tenet and his deputies, the officials said. Rice, in a statement to congressional investigators last month, confirmed the briefings and acknowledged that the CIA director had pressed the White House for "policy approval." The repeated requests for a paper trail reflected growing worries within the CIA that the administration might later distance itself from key decisions about the handling of captured al-Qaeda leaders, former intelligence officials said. The concerns grew more pronounced after the revelations of mistreatment of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and further still as tensions grew between the administration and its intelligence advisers over the conduct of the Iraq war.

"It came up in the daily meetings. We heard it from our field officers," said a former senior intelligence official familiar with the events. "We were already worried that we" were going to be blamed.

A. John Radsan, a lawyer in the CIA general counsel's office until 2004, remembered the discussions but did not personally view the memos the agency received in response to its concerns. "The question was whether we had enough 'top cover,' " Radsan said.

The Bush administration issued a pair of secret memos to the CIA in 2003 and 2004 that... more

starr111
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3 years ago
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6 comments

CIA Torture Endorsed In Secret Memos

The Bush administration issued a pair of secret memos to the CIA in 2003 and 2004 that... more

iloveravi
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3 years ago
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5 comments

Bush & pals endorsed waterboarding

...The Bush administration explicitly endorsed the use of waterboarding and other... more

Found_Avenue
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3 years ago
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