Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
The Washington Post reports:
The Bush administration issued a pair of secret memos to the CIA in 2003 and 2004 that explicitly endorsed the agency's use of interrogation techniques such as waterboarding against al-Qaeda suspects -- documents prompted by worries among intelligence officials about a possible backlash if details of the program became public.The classified memos, which have not been previously disclosed, were requested by then-CIA Director George J. Tenet more than a year after the start of the secret interrogations, according to four administration and intelligence officials familiar with the documents. Although Justice Department lawyers, beginning in 2002, had signed off on the agency's interrogation methods, senior CIA officials were troubled that White House policymakers had never endorsed the program in writing.
This should come as a surprise to absolutely no one, of course. And this came about because the CIA was concerned that the Bush administration was going to cut them loose and pin the blame on them if it ever came to light:
The repeated requests for a paper trail reflected growing worries within the CIA that the administration might later distance itself from key decisions about the handling of captured al-Qaeda leaders, former intelligence officials said. The concerns grew more pronounced after the revelations of mistreatment of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and further still as tensions grew between the administration and its intelligence advisers over the conduct of the Iraq war."It came up in the daily meetings. We heard it from our field officers," said a former senior intelligence official familiar with the events. "We were already worried that we" were going to be blamed.
A. John Radsan, a lawyer in the CIA general counsel's office until 2004, remembered the discussions but did not personally view the memos the agency received in response to its concerns. "The question was whether we had enough 'top cover,' " Radsan said.
One of the rarely discussed aspects of Bush's policies has been the damage he's done to the relationship between the intelligence services and the rest of the government, especially the defense department.
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That it happened shouldn't be surprising but the mere fact that the CIA decided that what it obviously knew was wrong was fine to do as long as a "get out of jail free" card was written out tells rather a depressing story.
How are you supposed to defend "freedom" when you think anything is acceptable as long s you can say you were "just following orders"?
Posted by: Andrew | October 22, 2008 10:41 AM
The best book I've read this year is "Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency", http://www.amazon.com/Angler-Cheney-Presidency-Barton-Gellman/dp/1594201862/ref=wl_it_dp?ie=UTF8&coliid=I1WKOQBM4XWIWL&colid=VK3F5WEZXD6H
I'm about half way through. The author, Barton Gellman, not only does a fantastic job covering subjects like the authorization to use torture by guys like Cheney and Rumsfeld, but also has a great grasp of the constitutional issues that Cheney continuously has challenged and even violated and how he knowingly crafted work arounds from a legal and political perspective. Even though I've read about a dozen books on Bush and his administration, I could never connect all the dots to make sense of who these guys actually are - especially in terms of their judgment, competency and sheer breadth and volume of astounding decisions - until this book.
Gellman does a great job showing how Cheney, on the morning of 9/11 when he was in the bunker, already started the process with his legal counsel to redefine how America, its military, the White House, and its intelligence agencies would act for the remainder of the Bush Presidency.
Cheney plays a game at level few if any have ever played at, his arrogance in his own judgment is obvious for all to see, but how this came to be is an absolutely fascinating story.
Posted by: Michael Heath | October 22, 2008 11:27 AM
Great. We can has Bush in prison, plz?
Posted by: Alex, FCD | October 22, 2008 11:54 AM
Seriously!
I hope the Hague is prepping several cells now.
Posted by: SharonB | October 22, 2008 12:55 PM
Torture may sometimes be necessary, according to Sam Harris, atheist writer of The End of Faith.
If you were in a position of leadership, and had a reasonable report that there could be a nuke loose in the country, you would have no choice but to use ANY AND ALL MEANS necessary to find it.
If you did not use any and all means at your disposal, and the nuke actually went off in a major area, the blood would be on your hands
Posted by: Sam Harris Fan | October 23, 2008 5:24 AM
I'm beginning to think that "Sam Harris Fan" is a troll's sockpuppet.
Speaking of Bushcheney or Cheneybush; can we impeach the fucker, now?
Posted by: democommie | October 23, 2008 6:54 AM
It's not an accident that nearly all of the 'intelligence' (e.g. , the claims of 'curveball', the man who supposedly worked in Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons dept) obtained through torture has been shown to wrong.
It's high time people like Sam Harris woke the fuck up and realized all the available evidence indicates torture does not provide useful information.
Posted by: llewelly | October 23, 2008 7:20 AM
Sam Harris Fan: If you were in a position of leadership, and had a reasonable report that there could be a nuke loose in the country, you would have no choice but to use ANY AND ALL MEANS necessary to find it.
Remind us again how this is relevant to a discussion of Bush and Cheney?
Posted by: Chiroptera | October 23, 2008 7:45 AM
Sam Harris fan: Your point is what exactly? That there are looney tune Atheists out there too? No shit. As mentioned above it's unreliable information at best and not relevant to the situation being discussed here.
Oh and one more thing: no, the blood would be on the hands of whoever planted the nuclear devise.
Let's impeach.
Posted by: T's Grammy | October 23, 2008 9:34 AM
My money's on theist troll, considering this clarification Sam Harris posted regarding his views on torture.
Posted by: Martian Buddy | October 23, 2008 4:11 PM
It's got nothing whatever to do with whther torture provides useful information. Even if it worked, it would still be wrong under any circumstances to do. Even in the loose-nuke situation. Where on earth is "Sam Haris Fan" getting his ethics from? The guilt is most definitely not with the public official who didn't torture the truth out of the prisoners: it's with the bomber who did it.
It's even more depressing than that: anything is acceptable provided you are defending freedom to do it. Up to and including bombing the villiage in order to save it from terrorism.
Posted by: Paul Murray | October 23, 2008 7:36 PM