Cheney - On “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques”
From Dana Priest, Washinton Post, June 27, 2004
The CIA has suspended the use of extraordinary interrogation techniques approved by the White House pending a review by Justice Department and other administration lawyers, intelligence officials said. The "enhanced interrogation techniques," as the CIA calls them, include feigned drowning and refusal of pain medication for injuries. Current and former CIA officers aware of the recent decision said the suspension reflects the CIA's fears of being accused of unsanctioned and illegal activities, as it was in the 1970s...
The commander in chief section of the opinion said laws prohibiting torture do "not apply to the President's detention and interrogation of enemy combatants" in his role as commander in chief. Congress, which has signed international laws prohibiting torture, "may no more regulate the President's ability to detain and interrogate enemy combatants than it may regulate his ability to direct troop movements on the battlefield," according to the August [2002] memorandum.
David S. Addington, Cheney's counsel...was particularly concerned, sources said, that the opinion include a clear-cut section on the president's authority...
Another element of the opinion criticized by outside lawyers is that it defines torture as pain "equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death." That standard would allow a variety of tactics that would be considered cruel and inhumane under international law, legal experts have said.
...White House spokeswoman Erin Healy said..."The President has spoken out against torture, he has never authorized it, nor will he."
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8534-2004Jun26_2.html)
Sources: Top Bush Advisors Approved 'Enhanced Interrogation'
(Excerpts)
Detailed Discussions Were Held About Techniques to Use on al Qaeda Suspects
"In dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House, the most senior Bush administration officials discussed and approved specific details of how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, sources tell ABC News
The so-called Principals who participated in the meetings also approved the use of "combined" interrogation techniques -- using different techniques during interrogations, instead of using one method at a time -- on terrorist suspects who proved difficult to break, sources said.
Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects -- whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding.
The high-level discussions about these "enhanced interrogation techniques" were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed -- down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.
The advisers were members of the National Security Council's Principals Committee, a select group of senior officials who met frequently to advise President Bush on issues of national security policy.
At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.
As the national security adviser, Rice chaired the meetings, which took place in the White House Situation Room and were typically attended by most of the principals or their deputies.
... "I can say that questioning the detainees in this program has given us the information that has saved innocent lives by helping us stop new attacks here in the United States and across the world," Bush said in a speech in September 2006.
In interview with ABC's Charles Gibson last year, Tenet said: "It was authorized. It was legal, according to the Attorney General of the United States."
But this is the first time sources have disclosed that a handful of the most senior advisers in the White House explicitly approved the details of the program. According to multiple sources, it was members of the Principals Committee that not only discussed specific plans and specific interrogation methods, but approved them...
Lawyers in the Justice Department had written a classified memo, which was extensively reviewed, that gave formal legal authority to government interrogators to use the "enhanced" questioning tactics on suspected terrorist prisoners. The August 2002 memo, signed by then head of the Office of Legal Counsel Jay Bybee, was referred to as the so-called "Golden Shield" for CIA agents, who worried they would be held liable if the harsh interrogations became public...
According to a top official, Ashcroft asked aloud after one meeting: "Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly."
The Principals also approved interrogations that combined different methods, pushing the limits of international law and even the Justice Department's own legal approval in the 2002 memo, sources told ABC News.
(http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/LawPolitics/Story?id=4583256&page=4)
Q&A: Torture and 'enhanced interrogation'
By Mark Tran, Guardian
(Excerpts)
April 18, 2008
"The Bush administration insists it does not torture people, but says it uses "enhanced interrogation techniques", which, according to critics, for all intents and purposes include torture.
When pressed on the issue, George Bush has repeatedly denied subjecting people to torture. At a press conference in Panama in 2005, the US president told reporters: "We do not torture people." He said the US would aggressively pursue terrorists, but it would do so under the law.
In an interview with CBS in 2006, Bush again denied the use of torture when asked about secret CIA prisons or "black" sites around the world. "We have to have the capacity to interrogate - not torture - but interrogate people to learn information," he said.
In 2006, the vice-president, Dick Cheney, told a radio interviewer that waterboarding - the near-drowning of a captive - was used on the alleged September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed at Guantánamo. Cheney said the use of waterboarding on Mohammed was "a no-brainer for me. But for a while there, I was criticised as being the vice-president for torture. We don't torture. That's not what we're involved in."
How does the US justify it legally?
Between 2002 and 2003, the US justice department issued several memos from its office of legal counsel seeking to justify interrogation tactics that are deemed by critics to be torture.
The notorious March 2003 memo, written by John Yoo, who was then deputy assistant attorney general for the office of legal counsel, said Bush's wartime authority had priority over any international ban on torture.
"Our previous opinions make clear that customary international law is not federal law and that the president is free to override it at his discretion," Yoo wrote.
Who approved the interrogation techniques?
The decisions went right up to the White House.
Bush recently told ABC News in the US that he knew his top national security advisers in 2003 discussed and approved specific details of the CIA's methods.
"Well, we started to connect the dots in order to protect the American people," Bush said. "And yes, I'm aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved."