White House Ignored Torture Warnings

"While Mr. Bush rarely minces words when discussing Iran, his recent speeches, including an address before Israel's Parliament last week, have been particularly pointed, including unequivocal denunciations and historical allusions to Nazi Germany.

"Those remarks have reverberated through the American presidential campaign and again heightened speculation that the administration might be prepared to resort to force to resolve the impasse over Iran's nuclear activities."

Laura Rozen blogs for Mother Jones that the Jerusalem Post report was "lousy journalism . . . third hand in terms of sourcing, and all anonymous at that."

At yesterday's press briefing, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino repeatedly insisted that the administration's policy remains "to work with our international allies on a multilateral way to get the Iranians through diplomatic means, bringing economic and diplomatic pressure to bear on the Iranians to get them to change their behavior so that we could sit down at the table with them."

But it's worth noting that she didn't actually deny that a conversation like the one the Jerusalem Post reported took place -- or even that it could have.

Q. "Dana, it doesn't -- you don't deny the premise of the Post article, the Jerusalem Post article, which was that a senior U.S. official said that the President and Vice President were of the opinion that military action is called for in Iran?"

Perino: "I have no knowledge of anybody saying that to anybody in Israel, no. . . ."

Q. "What about the substance of it, though? Do the President and the Vice President feel that an attack is called for -- whether someone said that in Israel, or not?"

Perino: "Keith, I feel that I just answered that question when I talked about what our policy is."

Q. "Can you answer yes or no to that?"

Perino: "I just told -- said what our policy is and that our preference is to solve this diplomatically. And that's what we're trying to do."

Q. "But that doesn't answer the question."