BUSH'S 'PRINCIPAL' ADVISERS APPROVED TORTURE

Center for American Progress:
ABC News reported last night that President Bush's most senior and trusted advisers met in "dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House" beginning in 2002 to approve the use of "combined" interrogation techniques." These "top-secret" meetings were chaired by then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and included Vice President Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, George Tenet, and John Ashcroft. The tactics the group approved included how detainees "would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding." Former Justice Department official John Yoo wrote an infamous torture memo that signed off on these measures as long as they did not lead to "organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or death." ABC News did note, however, that both Powell and Ashcroft were troubled by the meetings and how these decisions would affect the image of the United States, but that Rice was not swayed by their concerns. Ashcroft reportedly said, "History will not judge this kindly."

Comment from the ACLU:
"With each new revelation, it is beginning to look like the torture operation was managed and directed out of the White House," ACLU legislative director Caroline Fredrickson said. "This is what we suspected all along."