Cheney: Neither Here Nor There?

Torture Watch

Karen DeYoung writes in The Washington Post: "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. . . .

"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. . . .

"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.'"

Mark Benjamin writes for Salon: "There is growing evidence of high-level coordination between the Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. military in developing abusive interrogation techniques used on terrorist suspects. After the Sept. 11 attacks, both turned to a small cadre of psychologists linked to the military's secretive Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape program to 'reverse-engineer' techniques originally designed to train U.S. soldiers to resist torture if captured, by exposing them to brutal treatment. . . .

"A previously classified report by the Defense Department's inspector general, made public last month, revealed in vivid detail how the military -- in flat contradiction to previous denials -- used SERE as a basis for interrogating suspected al-Qaida prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, and later in Iraq and Afghanistan. Moreover, the involvement of the CIA, which was secretly granted broad authority by President Bush days after 9/11 to target terrorists worldwide, suggests that both the military and the spy agency were following a policy approved by senior Bush administration officials."

Joseph L. Galloway writes in his McClatchy Newspapers opinion column: "It's long past time for Congress to reopen the matter of who's really responsible for Abu Ghraib and let the chips fall where they may -- even if that means they pile up around the retirement home of a former secretary of defense or the gates of the White House itself."

Justice Watch

Dan Eggen writes in The Washington Post: "Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty plans to tell House Judiciary Committee members that his earlier testimony, understating the White House role in the firings of U.S. attorneys, was not the result of anyone trying to purposely mislead Congress."

Well, then, what was it the result of?

Eggen notes: "Many lawmakers from both parties believe that McNulty has been scapegoated by Gonzales and his inner circle." (See my May 15 column.)

Carol D. Leonnig writes in The Washington Post about Bradley Schlozman's tenure as acting assistant attorney general for civil rights.

"Schlozman has acknowledged in sworn congressional testimony that he had boasted of hiring Republicans and conservatives, but he denied taking improper actions against the division's career officials. That account was challenged by six officials in the division who said in interviews that they either overhead him making brazen political remarks about career employees or witnessed him making personnel decisions with apparent political motivation."

For instance, Schlozman ordered three widely-respected minority women career lawyers to be transferred out of their jobs two years ago after reportedly telling a colleague his goal was to "make room for some good Americans."