Originally Posted By: britneyspearsatemyshorts
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080410/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/interrogation_tactics

 Quote:
Bush administration officials from Vice President Dick Cheney on down signed off on using harsh interrogation techniques against suspected terrorists after asking the Justice Department to endorse their legality, The Associated Press has learned.

The officials also took care to insulate President Bush from a series of meetings where CIA interrogation methods, including waterboarding, which simulates drowning, were discussed and ultimately approved.

A former senior U.S. intelligence official familiar with the meetings described them Thursday to the AP to confirm details first reported by ABC News on Wednesday. The intelligence official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly discuss the issue.

Between 2002 and 2003, the Justice Department issued several memos from its Office of Legal Counsel that justified using the interrogation tactics, including ones that critics call torture.

"If you looked at the timing of the meetings and the memos you'd see a correlation," the former intelligence official said. Those who attended the dozens of meetings agreed that "there'd need to be a legal opinion on the legality of these tactics" before using them on al-Qaida detainees, the former official said.


though whomod hates the Bush administration, he'll have to at least admit they did a good job on getting interrogations processed, they could have tried to gauge the polls and public opinion but they went about the business of protecting America first.


Seriously, do those interrogations actually produce real results?

I hear info gained under torture isn't always trustworthy, on account of people willing to say anything to stop the pain (and considering your average terrorist is willing to kill himself to get the job done, I don't think some pain is gonna faze him).

I say this not out of concern for any terrorist's well-being, but thinking bigger picture. We consider ourselves to be a bastion of liberty and human rights. It'll be hard to get other nations to listen to us when we condemn them for human rights abuses if they're gonna throw the "Well, YOU guys do it!" line back at us.

(And also, there's always the chance that someone being interrogated isn't actually a terrorist, but someone innocent guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. Terrorists are one thing, and I'm all for protecting the lives of our troops and fellow citizens, but I don't hold with torturing some civilian who's never harmed anyone. Do the interrogators have any way of being able to tell the difference?)

Just sayin', these interrogations we hear about aren't being always complained about just for a bushel of laughs.

Last edited by The Pun-isher; 2008-04-11 12:25 AM. Reason: Fixing a pun
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