NPR is reporting that Alberto Gonzales while the White House Atty, not the Atty Gen, was approving the Torture of Abu Zubaydah months before the Aug. Torture Memos were even written. It appears the ACLU has the proof from a ongoing court case.
The source says nearly every day, Mitchell would sit at his computer and write a top secret cable to the CIA’s counterterrorism center. Each day, Mitchell would request permission to use enhanced interrogation techniques on Zubaydah. The source says the CIA would then forward the request to the White House, where White House counsel Alberto Gonzales would sign off on the technique. That would provide the Administration’s legal blessing for Mitchell to increase the pressure on Zubaydah in the next interrogation.
Late May 19, the CIA sent the ACLU a spreadsheet as part of a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act. The log shows the number of top secret cables that went from Zubaydah’s black site prison to CIA headquarters each day. Through the spring and summer of 2002, the log shows someone sent headquarters several cables a day.
Did White House OK Earliest Detainee Abuse?
It is fair to think most of us care more about what Gonzales knew and did about torture than what Pelosi knew and when. If this all is true which it appears it is if you heard the hearing last week where Ali Soufan, a former FBI interrogator, testified behind a curtain about what he knew. Spencer Ackerman over at The Washington Independent points out a few interesting facts and questions.
James Mitchell Asked, ‘Please Can I Torture Abu Zubaydah?’; Did Alberto Gonzales Say Yes?
This still doesn’t address a central question raised by Soufan’s testimony to a Senate Judiciary Committee subpanel. If Soufan is telling the truth, then someone at the CIA must have overruled the agency’s own torture-dissenting interrogators at the Abu Zubaydah interrogation in favor of Mitchell, an agency contractor. Did any of them send cables to the Counterterrorist Center? Was the Counterterrorist Center aware of their objections to torturing Abu Zubaydah? And if so, why did they overrule their own officers in favor of a contractor who didn’t come from an agency that conducts interrogations? Cofer Black was head of the Counterterrorist Center when the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah began — he’s now an official with Blackwater Xe — and Jose Rodriguez, he of the torture-tapes destruction scandal, took over for Black in May 2002. What did they know and when did they know it? How many of the communications to CIA headqurters listed in the logs were from CIA interrogators at Abu Zubaydah’s interrogation chamber objecting to Mitchell’s techniques?
Between the 2 articles there is not much else to ask except to wonder if this will be enough to give the Dems the ammo to change the meme from Nancy to Alberto or Bush ? The only other question that comes to mind is who died and gave Gonzales the power to approve the breaking of both American and International Law ?
In case you missed mcjoans diary on this, she does a excellent jobs tying things together that I didn't even think of. http://www.dailykos.com/...