Bush and the torture policy

I wanted to be sure to flag this one here: Bush Approved Meetings on Interrogation Techniques by Dan Eggen Washington Post 04/12/08. Nothing shows the collapse of the American news media more dramatically than their treating Barack Obama's suggestion that some American voters are "bitter" along with Hillary Clinton's odd charge that the statement was "elitist" as a far bigger story than the President admitting knowledge and approval of a meeting of some of his most senior officials that made minute decisions on precisely which torture techniques would be applied to individuals targeted for torture and how they would be applied. Even the Post ran it on page A3!

From Eggen's report:

President Bush said Friday that he was aware his top national security advisers had discussed the details of harsh interrogation tactics to be used on detainees.

Bush also said in an interview with ABC News that he approved of the meetings, which were held as the CIA began to prepare for a secret interrogation program that included waterboarding, or simulated drowning, and other coercive techniques. ...

The remarks underscore the extent to which the top officials were directly involved in setting the controversial interrogation policies.

Bush suggested in the interview that no one should be surprised that his senior advisers, including Vice President Cheney, would discuss details of the interrogation program. "I told the country we did that," Bush said. "And I also told them it was legal. We had legal opinions that enabled us to do it."

The Washington Post first reported in January 2005 that proposed CIA interrogation techniques were discussed at several White House meetings. A principal briefer at the meetings was John Yoo, who was then a senior Justice Department attorney and the author of a draft memo explaining the legal justification for the classified techniques the CIA sought to employ.

The Post reported that the attendees at one or more of these sessions included then-presidential counsel Alberto R. Gonzales, then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, then-Defense Department general counsel William J. Haynes II, then-National Security Council legal adviser John B. Bellinger III, CIA counsel John A. Rizzo, and David S. Addington, then-counsel to Cheney.

The Post reported that the methods discussed included open-handed slapping, the threat of live burial and waterboarding. The threat of live burial was rejected, according to an official familiar with the meetings.

State Department officials and military lawyers were intentionally excluded from these deliberations, officials said.

The meeting itself meetings themselves had been previously reported. But not Bush's direct admission that he knew and approved of it them.

Tags: bush administration, torture