Gonzales Approved Torture Months Before Memos Written
by SmileySam
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/5/20/733785/-Gonzales-Approved-Torture-Months-Before-Memos-WrittenWed May 20, 2009 at 04:30:21 PM PDT
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...................
*****"At the very least, it's clear that
CIA headquarters was choreographing what was going on at the black site," says Jameel Jaffer, the ACLU lawyer who sued to get the document. "But there's still this question about the relationship between CIA headquarters and the White House and the Justice Department and the question of which senior officials were driving this process."
more at:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104350361