Condi Rice Approved Torture

Condi Rice was among the president's principles committee that approved of 'harsh interrogation techniques' (aka torture) of prisoners.

Dear little Condi got herself all dirty with approving what many call "torture" techniques.  To their credit the slimy group of Bush White House folk including Colin Powell, Cheney, and Rice who was National Security Chairman at the time did deny one technique, threat of live burial (let me guess, like waterboarding such threat could even include dumping soil on the prisoner's face, but supposedly stopping just before he expires if he's lucky).

Remember our sweet little Madam Secretary (to whom mainstream always ascribes the noblest intention) supposedly braked the worst impulses of the Bush administration)?

Excerpt ABC News "Sources: Top Bush Advisors Approved 'Enhanced Interrogation' ":

A year later, amidst the outcry over unrelated abuses of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the controversial 2002 legal memo, which gave formal legal authorization for the CIA interrogation program of the top al Qaeda suspects, leaked to the press. A new senior official in the Justice Department, Jack Goldsmith, withdrew the legal memo -- the Golden Shield -- that authorized the program.

 

But the CIA had captured a new al Qaeda suspect in Asia. Sources said CIA officials that summer returned to the Principals Committee for approval to continue using certain "enhanced interrogation techniques."

Then-National Security Advisor Rice, sources said, was decisive. Despite growing policy concerns -- shared by Powell -- that the program was harming the image of the United States abroad, sources say she did not back down, telling the CIA: "This is your baby. Go do it."

One thing that seems to be missing from the ABC report (unless I read too fast is the fact that the group got some live demonstrations of "enhanced interrogation" techniques (See Democracy Now The War and Peace Report April 11, 2008 ).  I hope Condi didn't get any blood on her boots. 

I am not picking on Ms. Rice because she is a woman.  The press has treated Colin Powell with similar kid gloves and he was at the meetings too, but Mr. Powell is not trying to convince a presidential candidate to sign him up as a running mate.  When the former secretary does, I'll be bashing him big time over this torture issue too, since he was in on the meetings, as well.

tags: condoleeza rice  colin powell  don senor  vice president pick  vice presidential candidate  john mccain  

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