A declassified report of more than 200 pages released last night by the Senate Armerd Services Comittee confirms that Bush military and intelligence officials prepared to torture 8 months before they were granted legal approval to use "enhanced interrogation methods." So forgive me if I find it illusory for President Obama to say that the Administration has not ruled out prosecuting anyone who exceeded the legal guidelines. The guidelines had not yet been written. And even once they were written, they were secret.
And the methods themselves? It strains credulity, but apparently none of our nation's leaders knew that they were ineffective or illegal. . .
The classified torture program began with CIA director George Tenet and CIA Deputy Director John McLaughlin's stroke of genius: adopt interrogation methods used on Americans during a military training program called SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape), which was designed to teach troops about the brutal interrogation techniques they could face as prisoners of war.
President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Cheney's legal advisor David Addington, National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice, Attorney General John Ashcroft, Ashcroft's Office of Legal Counsel attorney John Yoo, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Secretary of State Colin Powell did not object.
Nor the "Gang of Four" leaders of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees (the ones created in the 1970's to prevent repetition of the CIA abuses uncovered by the Church Committee): Bob Graham (D-FL), Richard Shelby (R-AL), Porter Goss (R-FL), or Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
Apparently, NO ONE knew that SERE was created decades earlier to give American soldiers and pilots a taste of the torture methods used by Communists in the Korean War--even though some SERE trainers had warned in internal memos that the methods were ineffective (not to mention, had been prosecuted as war crimes by the United States following World War II.) No one knew, despite documented warnings from lawyers, military officials, trained interrogation experts, and even the Lieutenant Colonel who oversaw SERE training himself, that the techniques at best could backfire and at worst were illegal. Apparently, everyone was egged on by two former SERE psychologists, James E. Mitchell and Bruce Jessen.
Props to the Senate Armed Services Committee for releasing such a damning report. Too bad the MSM continues to give so much ink to torture apologistsm most notably Dick Cheney, who claim the techniques worked.