FBI Agent: Bush Lied On Torture

By Celia Canon- Talk Radio News service

Ali Soufan, a former FBI supervisory agent, confirms that the George W. Bush administration lied on its use of torture in its interrogation
processes.

In 2005, President Bush said that “America does not condone torture”,
a statement that has been put into question following the recent
decision by President Barack Obama to publish four memos which detail
the legal justification used by the Bush administration to justify the
methods employed in the interrogation process led by the CIA.

Chairman of the Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the
Courts Sheldon Whitehouse said “John Yoo (former official in the Department of Justice) told Esquire Magazine that waterboarding was only done ‘three times’ when public reports now indicate that two detainees were waterboarded 83 and 183 times”.

This revelation has hindered the American reputation abroad, resulting
in a struggle between institutions of the government such as the
intelligence agencies and the Department of Justice on who is to blame
the most for having carried out these seances.

Philip Zelikow, former counselor of the State Department, said that “
Attorney General John Ashcroft and his Department of Justice, along
with the White House Counsel, Alberto Gonzalez, assured the
government’s leaders that the proposed program was lawful.”

Whitehouse said that “We were told that waterboarding was
determined to be legal, but were not told how badly the law was
ignored, bastardized and manipulated by the Department of Justice’s
Office of Legal Counsel, nor were we told how furiously government and military lawyers rejected the defective OLC opinions-but we ignored.”

In parallel, Soufan said that “The interrogation team was a
combination between the FBI and the CIA. All of us had the same
opinion that contradicted with the contractor.”

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said “I’m also proud of the fact that
the United states of America, when its made mistakes, has not been
afraid to admit these mistakes and learn from them and pledge not to
make the same mistakes again.”

Guantanamo Bay: John Yoo's biggest mistake?

The House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties met for a third time to discuss interrogation tactics authorized for Guantanamo Bay prison detainees and whether these tactics constituted torture. Committee member Jerry Nadler, Chairman of the Subcommittee( D-Ny.) presided over the hearing and said that the morals of the U.S. have been “besmirched” by techniques used by interrogators at Guantanamo. He said the more he learns about these techniques and the secretive way they were authorized, the more appalled he becomes. The witnesses included John Yoo, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General, and David Addington, Chief of Staff to the Vice President.

Yoo deflected a number of specific questions regarding his involvement with the creation of guidelines for interrogation techniques, specifically his involvement with the Bybee memo of 2008, which some committee members believed he was significantly involved in. He said that he was not at liberty to discuss certain issues because he was bound both by attorney/client privilege and the inability to reveal classified information. Yoo said that neither Congress nor the judicial system had provided guidelines which defined torture or acceptable interrogation techniques. He said that because of that he had no template to draw from while making the regulations for interrogation and the definitions of torture. He fell under immediate criticism from members of the committee for not consulting with the chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary committees in 2002, who were Senator Arlen Specter (R-Penn.) and Congressmen James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.).

Congressman John Conyers (D-Mich.), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, showed his obvious frustration when both Yoo and Addington tried to evade his questions. He raised his tone of voice and interrupted the witnesses multiple times. He was not the only one to express frustration; Congressman Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) also raised his voice a number of times and demanded straight answers from the witnesses.