MSNBC is reporting that 2 people testified today that former VP Dick Cheney made a request to have an Iraqi prisoner waterboarded in an effort to to create a link between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.
The prisoner was someone close to Hussein, and this would have been during the early days of the Iraq war.
Sen Sheldon Whitehouse was interviewed, and made the significant point that this use of waterboarding is outside the tenuous "imminent threat" argument made in the OLC torture memos, therefore not something that even Cheney could argue was "legal".
I'm going in search of links. Please add anything you find to comments.
I know this is not yet a diary, but it will be, and this is important news.
Update - Link Here
MSNBC Link
MSNBC video link
HERE
Daily Beast link, courtesy of Lady Libertine
Here
None of this is really new information, but it's now part of the Senate record, and will be harder to ignore. Even Faux News will have to acknowledge it as they attempt to pin the blame on Nancy Pelosi.
I'm in and out of here looking for other links - please add whatever you can!
UPDATE: There's still nothing on CNN, and I even went to Fox. It's All Pelosi All The Time on CNN, and Fox has added info on the CIA turning down Cheney's request to declassify the documents that will prove he was right. Cheney will rework his request.
Update: H/T lysius:
Two senior intelligence officials said that the April 2003 request was made regarding Muhammed Khudayr al-Dulaymi, head of the M-14 section of the Mukhabarat secret police, whose responsibilities included chemical weapons and contacts with terrorist groups.
They told the Daily Beast website that the request came from Mr Cheney's office but did not reveal who specifically had made it. At the time the Bush administration was anxious to support its principal case for the war, that the late Iraqi dictator was aiding plots against the US.