NPR: Alberto Gonzales OK'd torture months before August 1 2002 memo.

Source: All Things Considered

NPR's Ari Shapiro reports a source in the CIA says then White House counsel Alberto Gonzales OK's harsh techniques against Abu Zubaydah months before any memo on torture was issued.

"The source says nearly every day, (CIA contractor James) Mitchell would sit at his computer and write a top secret cable to the CIA's counterterrorism center. Each day, Mitchell would request permission to use enhanced interrogation techniques on Zubaydah. The source says the CIA would then forward the request to the White House, where White House counsel Alberto Gonzales would sign off on the technique. That would provide the Administration's legal blessing for Mitchell to increase the pressure on Zubaydah in the next interrogation.




Read more: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104350361

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Now, if this isn't grounds for prosecution, I don't know what is.

Wasn't 911 their excuse for doing it in the first place? Finding a link between Sadam/911/Al Queda?

I don't know why I put those dates together though?:shrug:

I meant this post as a reply to Twilghtzone and not to myself. I am now stepping away from the computer, gonna take my nap. Maybe when I get back I'll be able to think straight?

I mix stuff up all the time. :)

the abuse in NYC right after 9/11 or a number of incidents in Afghanistan. Bush went from zero to torture immediately.

Drip.. drip.. drip..

:kick:

they were already doing. (Illegal wiretapping for ex.)

other lawyers prepared memos. In other words, they always SUPPOSEDLY sought and obtained legal cover.

Bybee asked Gonzalez for a federal judgeship. Gonzalez told Bybee to come work for the administration and they'd see if anything opened up. Bybee wrote a memo giving them cover and, lo and behold, a judgeship for Bybee did open up. And he sits on the federal bench while Obama prevents prosecution, Congress does nothing to impeach and Holder asks holdover D of J Bushbots if they should at least complain about disbarment and, shock of shocks, the Bushbot holdovers find no reason to complain.

This coverup makes Nixon, Haldemann, Erhlichmann, Liddy, et al. look like big chickens for trying to do things behind the scenes.

Message to future administrations: Don't try to hide. You'll only get run out of the WH on a helicopter. Brazen it out!

There is a DoJ report out the end of this month on this very question: Did DoJ fix the legal cover over torture? We know the answer already but, fyi.

:hi:

(Since it's from the Congressional Record, I assume I can quote at length.)

http://www.c-spanarchives.org/congress/?q=node/77531&id=7387217

Text From the Congressional Record
Durbin, Richard
2005-10-05

Twice in the last year and a half, I have authored amendments to affirm our Nation's longstanding position that torture and other cruel treatment are illegal. Twice the Senate unanimously approved my amendments. Both times the amendments were killed behind closed doors of conference committees. Both times these amendments, which I offered and which were accepted by the Senate, were stricken from the bill at the insistence of the administration. . . .

In early 2002, Alberto Gonzales, who was then-White House Counsel, recommended to President Bush that the Geneva Conventions should not apply to the war on terrorism. Colin Powell, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was then-Secretary of State, objected strenuously to Attorney General Gonzales' conclusion. He argued that we could effectively fight the war on terrorism and we could live by the Geneva Conventions, which have been the law of the land in America for over half a century.

Unfortunately, the President rejected Secretary Powell's wise counsel and instead accepted Attorney General Gonzales' recommendations. In February of 2002, he issued a memo determining that the Geneva Conventions would not apply to the war on terrorism.

Then the administration unilaterally created new policies on the use of torture. I am referring to, among other things, the well-known Bybee memo of August 1, 2002, which has been publicly disclosed. They have claimed that the President has the right to set aside the law that makes torture a crime. They have narrowly defined torture as limited only to abuse that causes pain equivalent to organ failure or death.

They claim that it is legal to subject detainees to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment even though Congress has ratified the torture convention, which explicitly prohibits cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.

This fact was verified by Attorney General nominee Gonzales during confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, in response to a question which I asked him directly.

Despite all of this, the administration continues to insist that their policy is not to treat detainees inhumanely.

What does this mean? Recently, I asked Timothy Flanigan this question. He was the Deputy to White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales. Mr. Flanigan has been nominated to be the Deputy Attorney General, the second highest law enforcement official in the Nation. Mr. Flanigan said inhumane treatment is "not susceptible to a succinct definition."

I asked him whether the White House had provided any guidance to our troops on the meaning of inhumane treatment. He acknowledged that they had not.

I asked Mr. Flanigan about specific abuses. I asked him: would it be inhumane to beat prisoners or subject them to mock executions? He said, "It depends on the facts and circumstances."

I cannot imagine facts and circumstances in which it would be humane to subject a detainee to a mock execution. Last week an editorial in the Washington Post called Mr. Flanigan's answers to my questions, "evasive legalisms in response to simple questions about uncivilized conduct."

How are our service men and women supposed to know how to treat detainees when high-ranking administration officials do not seem to know or refuse to respond to these direct questions?

:mad: We are F*CKED..the powers that be do NOT give a damn! Once we realize this, maybe we will rise up and save this country we love. In the meantime, ambivalence prevails!

who in the * administration didn't know? I'm talking about the (people) at the very top? The Torture Team. Kudos to Phillipe Sands for his book of the same name. I will not question President Obama. The collapse of America- (which could happen soon no thanks to the multinationalcorporations-aka-NWO) may happen as a result of the * administration's cronyism. Multinationalconglomeration. Any way I put it, it comes out with the same result. We're getting screwed until we rearrange the power elites in this country.

The question is do we still want these perverts running our international policies? How well has that worked out so far? Is this where we want to go in the future?

His TWO personalities are: 1) Useful TOOL, doing all the puppet hoop-jumping that his masters want him to do.

2) Incompetent FOOL, who likely didn't even realize the gravity of what he was doing BEFORE ShrubCo decided to pursue SOME kind of "legal" CYA apparatus.

They will Roast in Eternity for their Heathen Republicon WAYS.

Fuck him.

And he should. Gonzo would not be the first AG to be prosecuted and go to jail - John Mitchell beat him.