Ashcroft, Other Top Bush Officials, OK'd Waterboarding in 2003
Top officials in the Bush administration, including former Attorney General John Ashcroft and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, were briefed on and approved, by 2003, the controversial use of waterboarding on terrorism suspects by the Central Intelligence Agency, reports the Washington Post.
Rice gave a key early approval at a 2002 briefing, the newspaper reports, relying on what the Post article describes as a “detailed timeline” declassified by Attorney General Eric Holder at the request of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Then, a year later, Vice President Richard Cheney, Ashcroft, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and John Bellinger, the National Security Council legal adviser, were also briefed, along with Rice, the Post recounts. They “reaffirmed that the CIA program was lawful and reflected administration policy,” the timeline states.
Described as torture by Holder, the near-drowning experience was reportedly applied to a few suspects extensively. Khalid Sheik Mohammed, a self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, was waterboarded 183 times in March 2003.
“Strikingly, unless there is a further story in records not yet shown to us, the secretary of state and the secretary of defense, were not involved in the decision-making process despite the high stakes for U.S. foreign policy and for the treatment of the U.S. military,” Sen. John D. Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) tells the Post.
Related coverage:
Wall Street Journal: “Torture Cases Would Face Legal Hurdles “
National Review: “Lowry: The case for close legal analysis of ‘torture memos’”
ABAJournal.com: “US Releases 4 More ‘Torture’ Memos, Promises Defense to CIA Workers”
ABAJournal.com: “Details of Harsh Interrogation Tactics Emerge in ‘Torture’ Memos”
ABAJournal.com: “Congressman Calls for Impeachment of Bybee over Torture Memos”
ABAJournal.com: “ACLU and Lawyers Guild Seek Differing Probes of Ex-Administration Lawyers”
Updated at 7:45 p.m. to add link to subsequent Wall Street Journal article.
