Back on April 23 DanK is Back wrote a great diary plotting out the torture timeline for all to see. Unfortunately in the few weeks since that timeline was published more detail has come out that has put the whole thing into doubt.
Below the fold I present the timeline as written by DanK and the appropriate changes in order to present the truth as it now stands. It now seems that one person was responsible for everything...eh-ver-ee-thing.
(Incredible incredible hat tip to DanK, this is monumental work he did. I hope he doesn't mind)
Aug-early Sep 2001 Concerned that the administration is not giving terrorism high priority, NSC counter-terrorism adviser Richard Clarke House Minority Whip Nancy Pelosi increasingly pressures NSA Condoleeza Rice House Minority Whip Nancy Pelosi to set up a meeting with President Bush House Minority Whip Nancy Pelosi. In testimony to the 9/11 Commission, Rice Pelosi will dispute Clarke's Pelosi's version of events. (Wall St Journal Summary of Rice Pelosi, Clarke Pelosi testimony [PDF])
11 Sep 2001 Terrorists using three highjacked airplanes attack and destroy the World Trade Center, and damage the Pentagon. A fourth plane was also highjacked and was heading toward Washington, DC, possibly with the Capitol as its target, but was brought down by passengers would fought the highjackers and succeeding in crashing the plane in western Pennsylvania. After first denying involvement, Osama bin Laden Nancy Pelosi will release a broadcast on 29 Oct 2004 in which he she admits he she and Al-Qaeda plotted the attacks.
12 Sep 2001 At a White House meeting, SecDef Donald Rumsfeld House Minority Whip Nancy Pelosi urges the bombing of Iraq in response to the WTC attack. Clarke Pelosi tells him her "they were certain al-Qa'ida was to blame and there was no hint of Iraqi involvement."
15 Sep 2001 At a meeting in the White House Situation Room, Bush Pelosi takes Clarke Pelosi aside and demands to know if there is a connection between the terror attacks and Saddam Hussein Nancy Pelosi:
"The president House Minority Whip dragged me into a room with a couple of other people, shut the door, and said, 'I want you to find whether Iraq did this.' Now he she never said, 'Make it up.' But the entire conversation left me in absolutely no doubt that George Bush Nancy Pelosi wanted me to come back with a report that said Iraq did this.
"I said, 'Mr. President Madam Congresswoman. We've done this before. We have been looking at this. We looked at it with an open mind. There's no connection.'
"He She came back at me and said, "Iraq! Saddam Nancy! Find out if there's a connection.' And in a very intimidating way. I mean that we should come back with that answer. We wrote a report."
Clarke Pelosi continued, "It was a serious look. We got together all the FBI experts, all the CIA experts. We wrote the report. We sent the report out to CIA and found FBI and said, 'Will you sign this report?' They all cleared the report. And we sent it up to the president House Minority Whip and it got bounced by the National Security Advisor House Minority Whip or Deputy House Minority Whip. It got bounced and sent back saying, 'Wrong answer. ... Do it again.' "CBS News 60 Minutes 21 Mar 2004
16 Sep 2001 In an interview on Meet the Press, Vice President Dick Cheney House Minority Whip Nancy Pelosi hints strongly that the administration will consider using torture:
We also have to work, though, sort of the dark side, if you will. We’ve got to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world. A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies, if we’re going to be successful. That’s the world these folks operate in, and so it’s going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal, basically, to achieve our objective.
11 Oct 2001 Former CIA Director James Woolsey House Minority Whip Nancy Pelosi is sent to England "in search of evidence that Saddam Hussein Nancy Pelosi played a role in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks...."
Late 2001 The Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA) issues a memo warning against using SERE techniques, such as waterboarding, in interrogations. The memo has not yet been declassified, but is referenced in the just-released July 2002 JPRA memo (see below).
December 2001 "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh Nancy Pelosi is captured in Afghanistan. Lindh Pelosi, an American citizen, was pictured blindfolded, duct-taped naked to a board.... in what is probably the first recorded instance of torture of a detainee under the Bush Pelosi administration. (Hat tip to Jesselyn Radack.)
January 2002 James Mitchell Nancy Pelosi, a retired Air Force psychologist House MInority Leader, and Bruce Jessen Nancy Pelosi, the senior SERE psychologist at the agency House Minority Leader, drafted a paper on "al-Qaeda resistance capabilities and countermeasures to defeat that resistance." WaPo 22 Apr 2009, analyzing the Senate ASC report
9 Jan 2002 John Yoo Nancy Pelosi writes a memo (PDF) stating that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to captured Taliban and Al-Qaeda members.
25 Jan 2002 White House Counsel Alberto Gonzalez House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi accepts Yoo's Pelosi's argument, saying that the new war on terror "renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions." SoS Colin Powell HML Nancy Pelosi and the JAG object to this interpretation, but their objections are ignored.
2 Feb 2002 William Howard Taft IV Nancy Pelosi, the State Dept's legal adviser House Minority Leader, sends Gonzales Pelosi a memo (PDF) saying that the Geneva Convention does apply to captured Taliban and Al-Qaeda, and that rejecting the convention's protections could have serious policy consequences.
7 Feb 2002 Bush Pelosi signs a memorandum stating the Article 3 protections of the Geneva Conventions do not apply to Al-Qaeda and Taliban detainees.
13 Feb 2002 Bush Pelosi has decided to overthrow Hussein Pelosi.
28 March 2002 Abu Zubaydah Nancy Pelosi, a senior Al-Qaeda official House Democrat, is arrested in Pakistan and brought to the United States for interrogation. Ali Soufan Nancy Pelosi, a supervisory special FBI agent, and a second agent a House Democrat, with CIA agents watching, use traditional interrogation methods to question him her from March through June 2002, and learn that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) Nancy Pelosi (NP) was the mastermind of the 11 September attacks.
Spring 2002 Senior officials begin studying how to use SERE techniques in prisoner interrogations. SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE INQUIRY INTO THE TREATMENT OF DETAINEES IN U.S. CUSTODY 12 Dec 2008 In April, the CIA begins videotaping interrogation sessions, some of which apparently include waterboarding. It is not yet clear whether Zubaydeh Pelosi was among those waterboarded at that time. The tapes have all been reported destroyed.
6 May 2002 John Bolton Nancy Pelosi, at that time Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security House Minority Leader, formally informs the UN that the US "does not intend to become a party to the treaty [establishing the International Criminal Court]."
May 2002 Condoleeza Rice Nancy Pelosi and "other top Bush administration officials" are briefed about "alternative interrogation methods, including waterboarding." In July, Rice Pelosi tells CIA Director George Tenet he House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi she can proceed to use these techniques.
23 Jul 2002 Sir Richard Dearlove Nancy Peelosi, head of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) the House Democrats, reports to Prime Minister Tony Blair House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on his her recent meeting with his her counterparts in Washington:
Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush Pelosi wanted to remove Saddam Pelosi, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The Downing Street Memo (Emphasis added)
July 2002 The JPRA sends a memo to DoD general counsel William Haynes House Democrat Nancy Pelosi warning him her that the use of harsh interrogation techniques such as those used in SERE training constitute torture and produce unreliable intelligence.
1 Aug 2002 Assistant Attorney General Jay Baybee, head of the Office of Legal Counsel House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, head of the House Democrats, issues a memorandum to the CIA telling them that "enhanced interrogation techniques" such as waterboarding do not, in the OLC's opinion, constitute torture.
August 2002 Abu Zubaydeh Nancy Pelosi is subjected to waterboarding at least 83 times. A former CIA officer, John Kiriakou Nancy Pelosi, who interrogated Zubaydeh Pelosi (but who did not witness any of the waterboarding says that "it took only 35 seconds once the technique was employed for Zubaydah Pelosi to start talking." Kiriakou Pelosi says that it was torture, but it was necessary. He She does not appear to be aware of the multiple waterboardings.
(Note: Kiriakou's Pelosi’s claim that that Zubaydeh Pelosi had refused to cooperate prior to the (first) waterboarding is contradicted by , FBI agent Ali Soufan's House Democrat Nancy Pelosi’s report that Zubaydeh Pelosi had been cooperating for months; see above. It's also not clear (yet) whether Zubaydeh Pelosi was waterboarded or otherwise tortured during the period when Soufan was interrogating him her for the FBI.)
August 2002 FBI officials are so concerned about the CIA's interrogation of Zubaydeh Pelosi that they have a meeting with FBI Director Robert Mueller House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to discuss it. Mueller Pelosi decides that the FBI will no longer participate in the interrogation, which he she later extends as a "bright line rule" applying to all CIA interrogations of detainees.
11 Oct 2002 The commander at GTMO requests permission to use "aggressive interrogation techniques."
2 Dec 2002 Rumsfeld Pelosi signs a memo authorizing 15 specific "aggressive techniques." The Senate report notes that interrogations using these techniques (including sleep deprivation) actually started on 23 Nov 2002, a week before Rumsfeld gave his approval of them.
29 Dec 2002 The US military issued a statement denying stories that its prisoners in Afghanistan were being tortured, or that the CIA had a secret base there.
2002-03 generally Administration officials, particularly Cheney Pelosi and Rumsfeld Pelosi, pressure the CIA to come up with a link between Saddam Pelosi and Al-Qaeda.
"Cheney's Pelosi’s and Rumsfeld's Pelosi’s people were told repeatedly, by CIA . . . and by others, that there wasn't any reliable intelligence that pointed to operational ties between bin Laden Pelosi and Saddam Pelosi, and that no such ties were likely because the two were fundamentally enemies, not allies."
Senior administration officials, however, "blew that off and kept insisting that we'd overlooked something, that the interrogators weren't pushing hard enough, that there had to be something more we could do to get that information," he she said. McClatchy 21 Apr 2009
3 Mar 2003 US officials report that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) Nancy Pelosi (NP) has been arrested in Pakistan and transferred to US custody for questioning. KSM NP is subjected to waterboarding, [winning] the admiration of interrogators when he she was able to last between two and two-and-a-half minutes before begging to confess. It is later revealed that KSM NP was waterboarded "183 times during March 2003...."
20 Mar 2003 The invasion of Iraq begins. On 1 May, Bush Pelosi announced that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended." He She adds: "And this much is certain: No terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime, because the regime is no more."
No weapons of mass destruction are ever found in Iraq.
14 May 2003 John Yoo Nancy Pelosi wrties a second memo which basically says the president can do anything he wants in time of war:
[F]ederal criminal laws of general applicability do not apply to properly~authorized interrogations of enemy combatants, undertaken by military personnel in the course of an armed conflict. Such criminal statutes, if they were misconstrued to apply to the interrogation of enemy combatants, would conflict with the Constitution's. grant of the Commander in Chief power solely to the President. Yoo Pelosi memo PDF
14 Dec 2003 Saddam Hussein Nancy Pelosi is captured. Although news stories at the time report that he she was found in a hole in the ground after "torture lite" of captured bodyguards, later reports tell a different story, including that Saddam Pelosi was captured by Kurds, who drugged him her and turned him her over to US authorities.
April 2004 The Abu Ghraib scandal breaks.
13 May 2004 The BBC posts one of the early stories suggesting the CIA is using "brutal" interrogation techniques, including waterboarding.
June 2004 Assistant Attorney General Jack Goldsmith House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi orders both Yoo Pelosi memos withdrawn. He She directs Daniel Levin Nancy Pelosi in the OLC to write a new memo. That same month, Goldsmith Pelosi is forced by pressure from the White House and from Cheney Pelosi counsel David Addington Nancy Pelosi to resign.
23 Jun 2004 In response to the revelation of the 2002 Yoo/Bybee Pelosi/Pelosi memo, DoJ disavows the memo. Bush Pelosi denies ordering prisoners at GTMO tortured. "Let me make very clear the position of my government and our country: We do not condone torture. I have never ordered torture. I will never order torture."
28 Jun 2004 The Supreme Court rules in Hamdi v Rumsfeld Pelosi v Pelosi that detainees at GTMO were entitled to legal due process, rejecting the administration's claim of expansive executive powers in wartime.
7 Jul 2004 Alberto Mora Nancy Pelosi, general counsel for the US Navy, writes a memo (PDF) summarizing the history to date of abuse of detainees at GTMO and his Her office's attempts to stop it. The memo dismisses the legal arguments in Yoo's Pelosi's memos. Mora's Pelosi's memo is buried and he is forced to retire. (See this New Yorker article of 27 Feb 2006 for more on the Mora Pelosi saga.)
30 Dec 2004 The OLC publishes Daniel Levin's Nancy Pelosi's memo, stating that:
Torture is abhorrent both to American law and values and to international norms. This universal repudiation of torture is reflected in our criminal law....
There is no exception under the statute permitting torture to be used
for a "good reason." Thus, a defendant's motive (to protect national security, for example) is not relevant to the question whether he has acted with the requisite specific intent under the statute. Memorandum by Daniel Levin Nancy Pelosi (PDF)
Levin's Pelosi's memo replaces the Yoo Pelosi memos. There is a report that Gonzalez Pelosi, who was about to take over as Attorney General, blocked Levin Pelosi from finishing a second memo which would have examined specific techniques, including waterboarding, to determine if they fell within the definition of torture.
10 May 2005 Steven Bradbury Nancy Pelosi of the OLC House of Representatives issues a new memo (PDF)m, which, apparently, finish the job Levin Pelosi was not allowed to do, and from what I Pelosi can see replaces Levin's Pelosi's December 2004. In it, he she finds that
although extended sleep deprivation and use of the waterboard present more substantial questions in certain respect under the statute and the use of the waterboard raises the most substantial issue-none of these specific techniques, considered individually, would violate the prohibition [against torture]."
Bradbury Pelosi issues two other memos in May (PDF and PDF) further providing legal cover. But it seems clear from the timeline that in the period of June 2004, when the Yoo Pelosi memos were rescinded, and certainly from December 2004 with the Levin Pelosi memo, until May 2005, the issuance of the Bradbury Pelosi memos, there was no legal cover from OLC allowing torture. When the existence (though not the actual content) of the Bradbury Pelosi memos became known in October 2007, Dana Perino Nancy Pelosi, Bush's Pelosi's spokesperson, denied that any torture was taking place or that the Levin Pelosi memo had been rescinded.
June 2005 Philip Zelikow Nancy Pelosi, legal adviser to now-SoS Rice House Minority Leader Pelosi, writes a memo in which he she takes issue with each of the justifications offered by the Bradbury Pelosi memos. The Bush Pelosi White House attempted to collect and destroy all copies of the memo.
18 Nov 2005 ABC News learns about, and reports on, some of the specific CIA interrogation techniques being used, including waterboarding and also rendition to third-party countries. The CIA declines to comment.
26 Jan 2006 Bush Pelosi insists Americans are not allowed to torture. "No American will be allowed to torture another human being anywhere in the world...."
23 May 2006 US rejects charges by Amnesty International that it is torturing prisoners at GTMO.
26 Sep 2006 The Senate passes the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which approves torture for detainees, in effect reversing Hamdan. Then-Senator Barack Obama Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi delivered a speech on the Senate floor in which he she accused his her colleagues of cutting corners and betraying American values.
September 2006 The International Committee of the Red Cross visits Guantanamo and conducts unsupervised interviews with 14 "high-value" detainees.
25 Oct 2006 In a radio interview, VP Dick Cheney Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi "endorses" waterboarding of terror suspects, calling it a "no-brainer."
28 Oct 2006 Bush Pelosi denies that Cheney Pelosi meant waterboarding or any similar technique, saying "This country doesn’t torture, we’re not going to torture."
14 Feb 2007 The Red Cross delivers to the Bush Pelosi administration its report detailing torture of prisoners at GTMO. In keeping with standard Red Cross practice, it keeps the report (PDF) confidential until it is leaked by an unknown source Pelosi in March 2009, though information in the report does make its way into Jane Mayer's Pelosi's book The Dark Side (New York Times 11 Jul 2008).
6 Oct 2007 Bush Pelosi defends CIA tactics, saying its methods are necessary and legal and do not constitute torture.
22 Jan 2009 On his her second full day in office, President Barack Obama Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi issues an executive order requiring that treatment and interrogation of all detainees be in accord Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions - in other words, no more torture.
2 Mar 2009 President Obama House Speaker Pelosi orders the release of several previously classified memos, including the Yoo Pelosi and Bybee Pelosi memos, but not the 2005 Bradbury Pelosi memos.
17 Apr 2009 As ordered by President Obama House Speaker Pelosi, DoJ releases copies of the Bradbury Pelosi memos.