Senate’s inquiry into CIA torture sidesteps blaming Bush, aides

[babylonsister]

Senate’s inquiry into CIA torture sidesteps blaming Bush, aides

By Jonathan S. Landay, Ali Watkins and Marisa Taylor
McClatchy Washington Bureau
October 16, 2014


WASHINGTON — A soon-to-be released Senate report on the CIA doesn’t assess the responsibility of former President George W. Bush or his top aides for any of the abuses of the agency’s detention and interrogation program, avoiding a full public accounting of one of the darkest chapters of the war on terror.

“This report is not about the White House. It’s not about the president. It’s not about criminal liability. It’s about the CIA’s actions or inactions,” said a person familiar with the document, who asked not to be further identified because the executive summary – the only part to that will be made public – still is in the final stages of declassification.

The Senate Intelligence Committee report also didn’t examine the responsibility of top Bush administration lawyers in crafting the legal framework that permitted the CIA to use simulated drowning called waterboarding and other interrogation methods widely described as torture, McClatchy has learned.

“It does not look at the Bush administration’s lawyers to see if they were trying to literally do an end run around justice and the law,” the person said.

As a result, the $40 million, five-year inquiry passed up what may be the final opportunity to render an official verdict on the culpability of Bush, former Vice President Dick Cheney and other senior officials for the program, in which suspected terrorists were abducted, sent to secret overseas prisons, and subjected to the harsh interrogation techniques.

“If it’s the case that the report doesn’t really delve into the White House role, then that’s a pretty serious indictment of the report,” said Elizabeth Goitein, the co-director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program at the New York University Law School. “Ideally it should come to some sort of conclusions on whether there were legal violations and if so, who was responsible.”

more...

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/10/16/243669_senates-inquiry-into-cia-torture.html?rh=1

[Octafish]

1. We don't want to politicize war crimes or treason or anything.

Congress investigate Executive torture? Pretty soon there'd be talk of a special prosecutor and who knows where that would lead? People might have to testify under oath.

[Autumn]

3. Eight democrats on that fricking comittee.

[Octafish]

4. I think NSA is blackmailing the lot.

They spied on Frank Church.

http://metamorphosis.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5249814

[gratuitous]

2. Yes, it all "just happened"

Nobody knows the how or the why, these people were just tortured. Mistakes may or may not have been made. We're not prosecutors or judges, so we can't really say that anyone's to blame for this. Heck, we can't even say if it was illegal.

But keep waving those flags, y'all. Greatest Nation in the History of the World! Exceptionally exceptional. They hate us for our freedom. They're the real terrorists.

[zipplewrath]

5. Too many congress critters involved

I suspect much of the current leadership on both sides of the aisle would be exposed as being complicit in what went on if the rock was truly overturned. So there is little pressure inside government to expose anything.