In dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House, the most senior Bush administration officials discussed and approved specific details of how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, sources tell ABC News.
The so-called Principals who participated in the meetings also approved the use of "combined" interrogation techniques -- using different techniques during interrogations, instead of using one method at a time -- on terrorist suspects who proved difficult to break, sources said.
Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects -- whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding.
The high-level discussions about these "enhanced interrogation techniques" were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed -- down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.
The advisers were members of the National Security Council's Principals Committee, a select group of senior officials who met frequently to advise President Bush on issues of national security policy.
At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.
As the national security adviser, Rice chaired the meetings, which took place in the White House Situation Room and were typically attended by most of the principals or their deputies.
You can watch the ABC News video of this story here on YouTube:
Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condi Rice, George Tenant, Colin Powell, and John Ashcroft attended these meetings in the White House Situation Room to discuss whether the CIA could use torture on al Qaeda prisoners. What even more surprising is that the meetings were so detailed to the point of redefining torture into the more politically correct phrase "enhanced interrogation techniques" while also discussing exactly what those techniques would constitute from slapping to waterboarding. No matter how you slice it, the Bush administration approved the use of torture on al Qaeda prisoners. And what is more damning is that the approval for these techniques came from these top "Principles" in the Bush administration. They approved them continuously, as Tenant kept asking the Principles for authorization to continue torture sessions on even more al Qaeda prisoners:
According to a former CIA official involved in the process, CIA headquarters would receive cables from operatives in the field asking for authorization for specific techniques. Agents, worried about overstepping their boundaries, would await guidance in particularly complicated cases dealing with high-value detainees, two CIA sources said.
Highly placed sources said CIA directors Tenet and later Porter Goss along with agency lawyers briefed senior advisers, including Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld and Powell, about detainees in CIA custody overseas.
"It kept coming up. CIA wanted us to sign off on each one every time," said one high-ranking official who asked not to be identified. "They'd say, 'We've got so and so. This is the plan.'"
Sources said that at each discussion, all the Principals present approved.
"These discussions weren't adding value," a source said. "Once you make a policy decision to go beyond what you used to do and conclude it's legal, (you should) just tell them to implement it."
The Principles continued signing off of more CIA torture sessions to al Qaeda prisoners got so routine, that even Attorney General John Ashcroft was worried the direction the Bush administration's torture policy was heading:
Then-Attorney General Ashcroft was troubled by the discussions. He agreed with the general policy decision to allow aggressive tactics and had repeatedly advised that they were legal. But he argued that senior White House advisers should not be involved in the grim details of interrogations, sources said.
According to a top official, Ashcroft asked aloud after one meeting: "Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly."
History will not judge this kindly. It is rather disturbing that someone as conservative as John Ashcroft would realize just how immoral the Bush administration has become with the continued approval of these cruel and barbaric torture sessions. We have insane criminals running this White House, and they will not stop the inhuman use of torture and endless war in Iraq to continue their own bloodthirsty dreams of imperial glory.
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