Page 18 - Torture Program News Today

So i think theres still a lot of questions to be answered, but at the same time, i think that the transparency issue with this report, i do, myself, believe that there should be something released to the public to be able to decide for themselves how they want to view this because it doesnt matter what the conclusions are of congress and the agency, they will continue to differ. and i think this is all going to come up to public opinion. >> this is whats so striking to me. what im hearing from y...

Just gets to say what the cia wants to do and doesnt answer to the white house. >> well, i think the fact that its been referred to the internal i.g. for the cia and out to doj, the investigation will hopefully give us a little transparency and insight into what actually transpired here and who possibly gave orders to whom to do what. so i think theres still a lot of questions to be answered, but at the same time, i think that the transparency issue with this report, i do, myself, believe that t...

Years, some things happened that were arguably illegal, right? nobody ever paid a price for the cias torture program. michael hayden, director of the nsa, was told by the justice department that one of the domestic surveillance programs was no longer authorized by the justice department in 2004 and the bush white house asked him to continue it anyway. he did so. i asked him about this recently. he said he did so because he was worried about the security of the united states. when the obama admin...

Cced on every memo or at one side of the spectrum. the other side of the spectrum is being, i guess, the decider. hes saying he wasnt the decider but theres a lot of space in between. and in d.c., chief of staff or deputy director, what they are usually implementers. not deciders or flies on the wall. theyre implementers. and for someone at this level, if he was implementing this torture program, secret prison program, thats a big deal. >> i think that this discussion is complicated by the fact ...

I worked in the united states senate for almost seven years and at no time was i ever privy to any of that information nor did i want to be. frankly, listen, do i like torture? no, i think its probably bad. i think id also -- i dont like drones per se but they make america safer. at the end of the day, this is a movie. its drama. i think all this hullabaloo by these three senators, two of which are democrats, john mccain, an american hero who was tortured, i think its all a bunch ado about nothi...

Happens again. >> mr. nance, i want you to listen to the sound bite from the oreilly program last night on this issue. >> you just made another mistake. >> all right. >> navy s.e.a.l.s and special forces are waterboarded during their training. im sure you know that. okay? >> yes. >> they dont say its torture. >> yes they do. >> are they waterboarded in their training? >> you know, some may because waterboarding is actually no longer done. its not been done since this controversy broke out in 200...

We got executive orders that banned torture, committed to closing guantanamo, that reversed the so-called ashkroft rule which is a rule that kept documents secret during the last administration. and then a few months into this administration, the president decided to release the memos that were the basis for the bushs administration torture program. those were all historic decisions, pro civil liberty decisions, and also pro security decisions. i think if you step back now and look at the broade...

Its willful blindness. it is an attempt to defend a flawed legal theory to support a torture program. >> an error of co-mission is turned into an error of omission. you mentioned what is not in this report. its over 300 pages. is there anything in it that gets us to understanding what happened in the bush administration that established torture as acceptable? >> a lot of it will be interesting to law professors and legal experts in the extent to which people like bybee left out critical pieces, ...

Unfortunate choices in dinner guests. not when you support a torture program. what were seeing now is the dismantling precedent that we created at nuremberg, when we said you cant facilitate war crimes and say it was simply bad judgment. everyone who commits war crimes often thinks about their own accountability. they often go to lawyers to facilitate them. thats why they were so critical at nuremberg. what were seeing now is that were treating it just like it was a bad day. its more than that. ...

Week, and he made a good point, once this goes to the penalty phase, khalid shaikh mohammed will be allowed to bring up all of the evidence about what happened to him in custody -- >> getting the death penalty will be pretty hard. >> if they pursue the death penalty, all this torture stuff will be litigated in open court. >> this is the problem with the bush administrations torture program. you cant torture people and get away with it. and its left a legacy of trouble for the obama administratio...