CIA Won’t Take the Fall For Bush’s Torture Policies

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Even though the White House is stonewalling, the Senate Intelligence Committee held a closed session on the destruction of CIA interrogation tapes, and the complicit Rockefeller emerged to tell us . . . nothing, the intelligence community was leaking stories all over Washington that pointed fingers right into the White House. It looks like the CIA is not willing to take the fall for the President's torture policies.

First, over at No Quarter, Larry Johnson's intelligence friends leaked word that the CIA's recently retired Deputy Director of Operations, Jose Rodriquez, who reportedly authorized the destruction of the interrogation/torture tapes, did not act unilaterally: "He did check with both the IG and the DO’s assigned Assistant General Counsel before destroying the DO’s copies of the tapes." As Larry notes, the NYT article by Shane and Mazetti also reports the involvement of other CIA attorneys in the decision.

The chain of knowledge and approval then moves from the CIA directly into the Justice Department and the White House. We pick up the story from Dan Froomkin at washingtonpost.com:


John Kiriakou, who participated in the capture and questioning of the first al-Qaeda terrorist suspect to be waterboarded, also made clear that every decision leading to the torture of CIA detainees was documented and approved in cables to and from Washington.......