Bush picks another winner - nominee for CIA's top lawyer has no "specific objections" to torture
posted by
Wally
8:43 AM
John Rizzo has been serving as the temporary General Council for the CIA since August 2004. Wait, "temporary" since 2004? He's finally now getting a Senate confirmation hearing after 3 years as a "temp"? Oh, that's right, Bush had a Republican rubber-stamp Congress for most of that time, so he didn't have to worry about such trivial formalities as Senate approvals of his appointments.
Sorry... where were we? Oh yeah, Mr. Rizzo stood before the Senate Intelligence Committee to argue that he should be upgraded from "temporary" to "permanent" general counsel, and told them that "he did not object to a 2002 memo authorizing interrogation techniques that stop just short of causing a sensation of impending organ failure or even death." The August 2002 memo, written by a senior Justice Department lawyer, said that for an interrogation technique to be torture, it must inflict physical pain that is difficult to endure.
Written for then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and shared with the CIA, the memo did not lay out specific techniques that could be used. Yet it drew a blurry line that could not be crossed by defining torture as any technique that produces pain equal to a serious physical injury, such as "organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death."
After nearly two years, the Justice Department disavowed the document in 2004. Rizzo said he agreed with the conclusion reached then, that the language appeared "over-broad." But asked if he wished he had spoken up about its contents, Rizzo said no.
"I can't honestly sit here today and say I should have objected," he said. So what he's saying is, even though the John Ashcroft / Alberto Gonzalez Justice Department said that the practices suggested by the memo crossed the line, Rizzo still, to this day, thinks they are perfectly fine, and still doesn't find them objectionable.
I say fine. This is Bush's guy. He says torture is okay. Let's see them use his approved methods when they drag Condi and Rove and Dick and George in front of a Congressional investigating committee and start asking questions, and see how "objectional" they find it.
Are those electrodes on your nuts, or are you happy to see me?
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