Legal Commentary

White House Authorized Torture (in Writing)

By TChris

As Big Tent Demcocrat noted earlier today, uneasy about the blessing it received from the Justice Department to engage in torture, senior CIA officials wanted express White House approval as political cover for its aggressive (and illegal) interrogation techniques.

The repeated requests for a paper trail reflected growing worries within the CIA that the administration might later distance itself from key decisions about the handling of captured al-Qaeda leaders, former intelligence officials said.

The Washington Post reports that the administration finally issued memoranda in 2003 and 2004 "that explicitly endorsed the agency's use of interrogation techniques such as waterboarding against al-Qaeda suspects." The classified memos have not been previously disclosed.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on October 15, 2008 (boomark / email).