"Severe Interrogations" Secretly Approved As Gonzales Moved Into AG Office

What a difference an AG makes.

A underqualified little toady will let you have everything you want appears to be the theme of NY Times report "Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations ".

The DOJ openly issued an opinion in December 24 that repudiated torture. 

But after Gonzales took up the post as head suddenly some highly abusive techniques were approved for use together that could be seen as egregious.  Simulated drowning is one of the techniques okay for usage along with frigid temperatures, and headslapping.  

See NY Times "" for details about that opinion, others.  Pingponging detainees after the Supreme Court declared that al Qaeda were Geneva Convention qualified too.

After the Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that the Geneva Conventions applied to prisoners who belonged to Al Qaeda, President Bush for the first time acknowledged the C.I.A.’s secret jails and ordered their inmates moved to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The C.I.A. halted its use of waterboarding, or pouring water over a bound prisoner’s cloth-covered face to induce fear of suffocation.

But in July, after a monthlong debate inside the administration, President Bush signed a new executive order authorizing the use of what the administration calls “enhanced” interrogation techniques — the details remain secret — and officials say the C.I.A. again is holding prisoners in “black sites” overseas. The executive order was reviewed and approved by Mr. Bradbury and the Office of Legal Counsel.

...

From the secret sites in Afghanistan, Thailand and Eastern Europe where C.I.A. teams held Qaeda terrorists, questions for the lawyers at C.I.A. headquarters arrived daily. Nervous interrogators wanted to know: Are we breaking the laws against torture?

The Bush administration had entered uncharted legal territory beginning in 2002, holding prisoners outside the scrutiny of the International Red Cross and subjecting them to harrowing pressure tactics. They included slaps to the head; hours held naked in a frigid cell; days and nights without sleep while battered by thundering rock music; long periods manacled in stress positions; or the ultimate, waterboarding.

Never in history had the United States authorized such tactics. While President Bush and C.I.A. officials would later insist that the harsh measures produced crucial intelligence, many veteran interrogators, psychologists and other experts say that less coercive methods are equally or more effective.

With virtually no experience in interrogations, the C.I.A. had constructed its program in a few harried months by consulting Egyptian and Saudi intelligence officials and copying Soviet interrogation methods long used in training American servicemen to withstand capture. The agency officers questioning prisoners constantly sought advice from lawyers thousands of miles away.

Because of the combination of extreme techniques used on  Khalid Sheikh Mohammed:

Some intelligence officers say that many of Mr. Mohammed’s statements proved exaggerated or false. One problem, a former senior agency official said, was that the C.I.A.’s initial interrogators were not experts on Mr. Mohammed’s background or Al Qaeda, and it took about a month to get such an expert to the secret prison. The former official said many C.I.A. professionals now believe patient, repeated questioning by well-informed experts is more effective than harsh physical pressure.

Read rest of long report for details of how the secret decisions that put human rights in jeopardy came about as the Bush administration put the chains of politics on the Justice Department.

tags: torture  department of justice  interrogation  water boarding  bush administration  alberto gonzales  gonzales  

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