Friday, January 3, 2014

Was President George Bush Kept In The Dark That The CIA Was Conducting Waterboarding On High Profile Terror Detainees?

Central Intellegence Agency (CIA) Acting General Counsel John Rizzo heads into a closed-door hearing with The House Select Intelligence Committee in the US Capitol 16 January 2008 in Washington, DC. (AFP Photo / Chip Somodevilla)

Former CIA Lawyer Says Bush Didn't Know About Waterboarding -- RT

Former United States President George W. Bush has defended the use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques against accused terrorists, but a lawyer from his administration says the two-term leader wasn’t in the loop when it came to waterboarding.

John Rizzo worked as an attorney at the Central Intelligence Agency for 30 years, including a stint under then-President George W. Bush during the dawn of America’s war on terror. He recounts his experience with the CIA in a soon-to-be-released memoir, Company Man, and the New Yorker’s Steve Coll says in a book review published on Thursday this week that a preview copy contains accusations about Mr. Bush and his presidency’s torture program that have not been made before now.

According to Coll, Rizzo’s book contains allegations that Bush was absent from confidential national security meetings in 2002 and 2003 in which the president would have been briefed on the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques, or EITs.

Read more ....

Update #1: Former top CIA lawyer John Rizzo: Bush didn’t know about torture -- Salon
Update #2: The C.I.A.’s Lawyer: Waterboarding and Memory -- The New Yorker

My Comment: President Bush has always defended the use of these interrogation techniques .... and even if he was not present in these meetings, I am sure that everyone who was present knew that if he was aware of it he would have signed off on it.

No comments: