Posted by Damozel | Did anyone ever doubt that certain top administration officials were involved every step of the way in authorizing the interrogation techniques used on al-Qaeda? Most of the people I know certainly thought so.
Everyone, in fact, except my mom. So I am not surprised, though somehow I am quite shocked. There is quite a bit of difference between 'knowing' and knowing. And now the 'highly placed sources' have come out of the woodwork. What took you so long, highly placed sources?
ABC News writes:
In dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House, the most senior Bush administration officials discussed and approved specific details of how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, sources tell ABC News....Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects -- whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding.
The high-level discussions about these "enhanced interrogation techniques" were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed -- down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.
The advisers were members of the National Security Council's Principals Committee, a select group of senior officials who met frequently to advise President Bush on issues of national security policy. (ABC News)
And do you know who the members of the committee were? All the usual suspects. Or rather, not quite all.
At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft. As the national security adviser, Rice chaired the meetings, which took place in the White House Situation Room and were typically attended by most of the principals or their deputies. (ABC News; emphasis added)
The group reportedly insulated President Bush from the meetings.
That's probably the end of Rice's hope, slight as it probably was, of becoming McCain's running mate. Although with McCain you never know. Maybe he thinks the carefully 'choreographed' use of torture is okay now.
Ashcroft, it seems was troubled----not about the torture, but about the involvement of White House officials.
According to a top official, Ashcroft asked aloud after one meeting: "Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly.".(ABC News)
Christ, we can only hope not.
The Principals also approved interrogations that combined different methods, pushing the limits of international law and even the Justice Department's own legal approval in the 2002 memo, sources told ABC News..(ABC News)
So there it is, at last. Now what? Under the title, 'war crimes,' Marc Ambinder writes:
[A] Democratic Justice Department is going to be very interested in figuring out whether there's a case to be made that senior Bush Administration officials were guilty of war crimes. Stories like these from ABC News -- Top Bush Advisors Approved 'Enhanced Interrogation' -- will be as relevant a year from now as they are right now, perhaps even more so.
But Jack Balkin thinks not: he thinks that neither Clinton nor Obama will feel they can afford to let it happen. "War Crimes Prosecution in the US?" he scoffs. "Dream on."
[T]he most likely prosecution for war crimes will not occur in the United States; if it occurs at all, it will come through the use of universal jurisdiction against Bush Administration officials who make the mistake of traveling outside the United States....It's important to understand the point I'm making here. It is not that certain members of the Bush Administration haven't committed war crimes. I'm pretty certain that at least some of them have. The point rather is that it is very unlikely that they will ever be brought to justice for it, at least in our own country-- despite the fact that there are statutes on the books which assert that the commission of war crimes violates our laws. That is not a normative recommendation. It is rather a prediction about power politics and about the deeply unjust world that we live in. (Balkinization)
At The Newshoggers, Cernig is afraid he must agree with Jack Balkin: "[T]he chances of a prosecution happening in the U.S. are less than nil. Prosecutions, if they come at all, will come from other nations....Sad but true, especially since I also agree with Balkin that war crimes have definitely been committed by members of the current administration."
Damozel asks, "What took you so long, highly placed sources?"
The Bushes are known to be very good at revenge, and the media have only been good at protecting sources who are supporters of the Administration.
Posted by: Charles | April 10, 2008 at 06:07 PM