Daily Archives: October 4, 2007

Misadventures In Severe Interrogations

In yet another twist in the ongoing saga of the current Bush Administration and Gonzo-gate, the Justice Department has once again been caught with their pants down as more lies and deceipt surface…the New York Times has reported that the U.S. secretly endorsed severe interrogations, after publicly declaring torture as ‘abhorrent’ in a legal opinion from December 2004.

Once president Bush’s buddy Alberto Gonzales became the U.S. Attorney General, the Justice Department issued a secret expansive memo endorsing the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.) that provided ‘explicit authorization’ to barrage terror suspects with painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.

Gonzales approved the legal memo on ‘combined effects’ despite the objections of James B. Comey, deputy attorney general who resigned after disagreeing with other illicit policies of the White House. Mr. Comey told his colleagues at the department they would be ashamed when the world eventually found out about it.

Most lawmakers weren’t aware of the secret memo and Congress was moving toward outlawing “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment current and former officials have said. While Congress was doing that, the Justice Department issued another secret memo declaring that none of the C.I.A. interrogation methods violated that standard. So, if most lawmakers weren’t aware of the secret memo, which lawmakers were aware of it?

Continue reading