By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 20, 2007

John A. Rizzo, who has spent much of the past five years honing the CIA's interrogation policies, knows how to avoid answering questions under pressure -- at least in public. In nearly two hours of Senate testimony yesterday, his longest response by far was six sentences long.

For much of the session, Rizzo confined himself to "Yes, sir," "No, sir" and "I think I'd best address that in closed session."

Senators used the rare open hearing of the Select Committee on Intelligence, held to consider Rizzo's confirmation as CIA general counsel, as an opportunity to air concerns about the long-secret CIA detention and interrogation program. What they wanted to know, and asked in a dozen different ways, was whether Rizzo had helped provide a legal rationale for torture. If he did, said Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.), "it's very difficult for me to vote for you."

Asked if he approved of a Justice Department opinion that only pain resulting in "organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death" qualified as torture, Rizzo carefully said he "did not object." Perhaps it "did appear overbroad," he added, "but I can't say that I had any specific objections to any specific parts of it."

Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) observed that there is a difference between failure to object and approval. "I'm not a lawyer," Warner said with a chuckle, adding that he "learned that little lesson" from Rizzo's formulation.

Affable and calm, Rizzo rolled a pen between his fingers as he issued other parsimonious replies to the five Democrats and two Republicans present. Dapper, white-haired and bearded, he resembled a slimmed-down Santa Claus in civilian dress more than Hollywood's version of a CIA consigliere.

Rizzo has spent virtually his entire career at the agency, including serving as acting general counsel for most of the time since September 2001 -- a job in which he passed judgment on the legality of numerous operations never meant to be publicly disclosed or debated. If confirmed, he will be the first person to hold the job who has risen through the ranks.

When Rizzo arrived at the agency more than three decades ago, the CIA had 19 lawyers, compared with more than 100 today. At the time, he said in his opening statement, it was deep in the doldrums. The Senate had just exposed intelligence excesses -- including assassination plots against Cuban President Fidel Castro and others -- and was demanding a major overhaul.

One change was to subject the agency to stronger congressional oversight, Rizzo said. But he explained that it took the 1980s Iran-contra affair, during which he served as the agency's "focal point" for dealings with Capitol Hill investigators, to convince him of the importance of coming clean with Congress.

"I saw firsthand the tremendous damage my agency sustained -- and all of it stemmed from the fact that, as an institution, CIA had kept the intelligence committees in the dark," he said. "Worse yet, a few senior CIA officers -- people I had worked with and admired for years -- wound up being prosecuted for misleading Congress." Careers were ruined along with the agency's reputation, Rizzo said.

The "indelible" lesson he learned, he said, was that the "CIA courts disaster whenever it loses sight of the absolute necessity to inform the intelligence communities on a timely basis what they need to know in order to perform effective, constructive oversight."

But there were limits to what he thought they needed to know in an open session, with reporters, the public and representatives of the ACLU, Human Rights Watch and other organizations in the audience.

When Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.), the ranking minority member, asked whether Rizzo thought a ban on CIA domestic surveillance activities should be lifted, he responded: "I happen to believe, senator, that the CIA can continue to be effective in its assigned mission . . . without any domestic surveillance authority capability. So I do believe, on a number of grounds, that that area is best left to the FBI and other domestic law enforcement agencies."

Noting that the Supreme Court last summer ruled that all prisoners in U.S. custody -- including those held by the CIA -- must be treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, Committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV asked whether pending interrogation rules had been approved by the White House. "Not to date, sir," Rizzo replied.

Rockefeller's follow-up, asking about how the president will interpret the relevant provisions of the Geneva Conventions in relation to CIA activities, elicited the longest response of the day. "Okay," Rizzo said, launching an explanation of the difference between "grave" and "non-grave" offenses under the conventions. "Let me give it a shot."

But when Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked whether Rizzo agreed with the reminder given to troops by the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, that torture is not only illegal but "frequently neither useful or necessary" in eliciting information, Rizzo chose his words carefully.

"I don't have any objection to that statement," Rizzo replied.

Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) tried a different tack. "Have detainees been rendered by us, including the CIA, to countries that use torture?"

Rizzo said he would have to answer behind closed doors.

"I'm not asking you which countries," said Levin, who is also a lawyer. He repeated the question.

"Well, again, if you don't mind, senator . . . it's difficult to give a yes or no answer to that in an open session."

Levin later asked for the record to reflect "a statement of the president in December 2005 that we do not render to countries that torture, a statement made in public . . . in contrast to Mr. Rizzo's statement that he could not answer that question in public."