Note to PEBO: This “Prosecute the Torturers” Issue isn’t Going to Go Away (Part II)

Dick Cheney has admitted that he personally authorize torture. He did it on National TV. I cannot think of any reason why that footage would not be admissible evidence against him in a criminal proceeding (anybody who can, I be looking in the comment threads).

Further, recent revelations indicate that other high ranking Bush Administration officials personally directed torture.

Top Bush aides, including Vice President Cheney, micromanaged the torture of terrorist suspects from the White House basement, according to an ABC News report aired last night.

Discussions were so detailed, ABC’s sources said, that some interrogation sessions were virtually choreographed by a White House advisory group. In addition to Cheney, the group included then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, then-secretary of state Colin Powell, then-CIA director George Tenet and then-attorney general John Ashcroft.

-snip-

"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…."

-snip-

"briefings and meetings in the White House to discuss individual interrogations continued, sources said. Tenet, seeking to protect his agents, regularly sought confirmation from the NSC principals that specific interrogation plans were legal. . . .

"According to a former CIA official involved in the process, CIA headquarters would receive cables from operatives in the field asking for authorization for specific techniques. Agents, worried about overstepping their boundaries, would await guidance in particularly complicated cases dealing with high-value detainees, two CIA sources said. . . .

Click the link and read Froomkin’s piece, it’s loaded with info.

One former CIA agent says that every punch, every slap, was individually authorized through Langley:

The former intelligence officer says the interrogators’ activities were carefully directed from Langley, Va., every step of the way.

“It wasn’t up to individual interrogators to decide, ‘Well, I’m gonna slap him. Or ‘I’m going to shake him.’ Or ‘I’m gonna make him stay up for 48 hours.’ Each one of these steps, even though they’re minor steps, like the intention shake– or the openhanded belly slap, each one of these had to have the approval of the Deputy Director for Operations.

“. . . . [B]efore you laid a hand on him, you had to send in the cable saying, ‘He’s uncooperative. Request permission to do X.’ And that permission would come. ‘You’re allowed to him one time in the belly with an open hand.’"

Think about how extraordinary that statement is! Agents in the field, were marionettes, getting directions from the White House basement, relayed through CIA HQ at Langley, about every single blow, every zap, every drop of waterboarding. And Cheney admits it!

It also turns out that the White House has it’s own interrogation room in the basement. Sounds more like Saddam’s basement than our president’s, doesn’t it?

How can anyone in the US think we could, or should, possibly get away with NOT prosecuting these crimes?

Especially when you consider that DoJ just successfully prosecuted Charles (Chuckie) Taylor, Jr., son of the former Liberian president, for torture and conspiracy to commit torture, and after DoJ urged a sentence of 147 years, he was sentenced to 97 years imprisonment. Yep, case in Florida. The US thinks it can prosecute nationals of other countries for crimes committed against nationals of other countries, during a war in which the US did not participate, but then can somehow escape prosecuting our own lawbreaking nationals when they commit similar crimes, sometimes against other US nationals, as well as citizens of other countries, in connection with our occupation of those countries?

Krazy World.

Twenty-fifth in a series on torture and the law

[Editor's note: This photo by takomabibelot features a banner created and designed by Firedoglake reader BonnieT of Austin, Texas, where she operates OpposeTorture.org.]

Related posts:

1. Cheney: Torturers Can Do No Wrong
2. Authorization Used by Torturers Possibly Permitted Harsher Waterboarding
3. One Former Official Ready to Bust Others for Torture
4. Cheetos Are Forever
5. With His Children Still Missing, KSM’s Torture Continues