Think Progress

Torture architect John Rizzo is still serving as the CIA’s acting general counsel.

By Amanda Terkel on Apr 22nd, 2009 at 12:30 pm

Torture architect John Rizzo is still serving as the CIA’s acting general counsel.

One of the important players in developing the Bush administration’s interrogation program was CIA General Counsel John Rizzo. Rizzo was part of a group of Bush administration lawyers that pushed for the authorization of torture. So what is Rizzo doing now? Marcy Wheeler notes that he is still serving as acting general counsel at the CIA:

On April 16, President Obama nominated attorney Stephen Preston, although he has not yet been approved by the Senate. Rizzo was never able to move beyond his acting title and become the agency’s general counsel; the White House had to withdraw his nomination because of protests from key senators and human rights groups.

Comments
31

67 Digg It!

30 Responses to “Torture architect John Rizzo is still serving as the CIA’s acting general counsel.”

AIO grasshopper says:

He probably knows too much; too many goods on too many politicians.
April 22nd, 2009 at 12:36 pm
tombaker says:

friends close, enemies closer.
April 22nd, 2009 at 12:36 pm
gah says:

Yet another reason to throw some coin Marcy’s way: https://secure.firedoglake.com/page/contribute/MarcyWheeler
April 22nd, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Uncle Ho says:

Another Nazi lawyer keeps his job.
This is change?
April 22nd, 2009 at 12:40 pm
MCMetal says:

What do you expect from someone who sports the same name as a character from “Grease” ?
April 22nd, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Jackie says:

The Senate hopes by keeping Rizzo torture can still be applied on the side and those involved can keep an eye on things for Darth Cheney. You have to admit these guys loved the Nazi’s and even applied their torture. As the World watches a young priate go on trial for his life for threatening a US Captian and putting a gun to his back, the US excuses the Torture done by Govenment employees, lawyers and the Bush Adminstration. Yes Americans are truely the example of Democracy and Justice but only for others not the US. We can commit crimes and even get rewarded for it while dictating to others.
April 22nd, 2009 at 12:53 pm
tombaker says:

On April 16, President Obama nominated attorney Stephen Preston, although he has not yet been approved by the Senate

Easy, Uncle Ho. It’s not fast enough for me, either, but there is change afoot.
April 22nd, 2009 at 12:54 pm
aplbotm says:

Who was tortured?
April 22nd, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Oval12345678 aka James K. Sayre says:

Progressive radio talk show host, Thom Hartmann, just reported that General George Washington refused to torture captured British officers during the Revolutionary War.

How far have we fallen in two hundred and thirty years to the depths of medieval Cheney, medieval Rumsfeld and medieval Bush.
April 22nd, 2009 at 12:54 pm
ElBruce says:

They really need to get the rest of those appointments confirmed. We don’t exactly have the luxury of wasting a lot of time.
April 22nd, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Hoodathunktick says:

aplbotm Says: Who was tortured?

Us because you showed up?
April 22nd, 2009 at 1:03 pm
RUCeriousMaggot! says:

Would this be one of Cheney’s ‘left behind’ mole plants?
April 22nd, 2009 at 1:05 pm
RantingTommy says:

only cowards support torture

this can’t be said enough
April 22nd, 2009 at 1:05 pm
RUCeriousMaggot! says:

slobbery, too late, the architect of this criminal enterprise is now esconced in Dallas TX.
April 22nd, 2009 at 1:05 pm
BobbyG says:

My paper (Las Vegas R-J) carried an article today wherein our senator John Ensign whined about the criticism of Jay Bybee’s role in torture subornation. My response (which I will send to him personally ASAP):

By his own hand in the 08-01-2002 OLC torture memo, in consderable damning detail, Mr. Bybee is complicit in subornation of war crimes. You Bush apologists — including the ever-predictable Party-Before-Country John Ensign — don’t get to parse away and define torture down. This is not even a close call. We imprisoned and even executed people for participation in the very same types of acts. Look up the history.

The fact that Mr. Bybee now sits comfortably on the federal bench owes ENTIRELY to the suppression of this torture memo during the time of his judicial confirmation hearing. Had it come publicly to light, he would never have been confirmed. He should not have been confirmed. He, and his fellow torture conspirators should be fully and openly investigated for having put this odious moral stain on our nation. They have put the nation and its defenders at significantly greater risk while sullying our reputation in the world.

The Israeli High Court once had to slap down its own intel service over torture — and, you cannot accuse the Israelis of being “soft, liberal, terrorist coddlers” either. Their conclusion:

“This is the destiny of a democracy—it does not see all means as acceptable, and the ways of its enemies are not always open before it. A democracy must sometimes fight with one hand tied behind its back. Even so, a democracy has the upper hand. The rule of law and the liberty of an individual constitute important components in its understanding of security. At the end of the day, they strengthen its spirit and this strength allows it to overcome its difficulties.”

Google “Educing Information” to find the 372 page report by our own National Defense Intelligence College. That’s where I found the quote.

April 22nd, 2009 at 1:06 pm
Joe Sixpack says:

Oval12345678 aka James K. Sayre Says:

How far have we fallen in two hundred and thirty years to the depths of medieval Cheney, medieval Rumsfeld and medieval Bush.

Point well taken. While we need expedicy at times to gain information, it is not worth sacraficing our national soul for. Our nation was founded on the principles of human rights, honor, morality, and the belief that a government should never be so big or powerful that it be allowed to trample on the rights and liberty of any man.

And shame on anyone who falls to the level of Cheney’s solution.
April 22nd, 2009 at 1:07 pm
fire _ant_chavis says:

Rizzo still employed? How deep does this rabbit hole go? Strange stuff. I’m going to wait and see what happens next before I say anything else on this topic.
April 22nd, 2009 at 1:12 pm
aplbotm says:

Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair acknowledged in a memo to the intelligence community that Bush-era interrogation practices yielded had “high-value information,”

http://theanchoressonline.com/2008/06/09/wapo-bush-substantiated-by-intelligence/
What a long, strange trip it’s been, and here, some years later, we finally get someone in the press to tell it straight: Bush did not lie.
But dive into Rockefeller’s [Intelligence Committee] report, in search of where exactly President Bush lied about what his intelligence agencies were telling him about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, and you may be surprised by what you find.
But statements regarding Iraq’s support for terrorist groups other than al-Qaeda “were substantiated by intelligence information.”
Statements that Iraq provided safe haven for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other terrorists with ties to al-Qaeda “were substantiated by the intelligence assessments,”
and statements regarding Iraq’s contacts with al-Qaeda “were substantiated by intelligence information.”
Getalife/starfleet is so wrong about so much they probably need to be reminded that Rockefeller is a democrat,not one of Bush’s cronies.
Abu-Musab Al-Zarqawi left the leadership of Osama Bin Laden
to start cell in Iraq after he was hurt in battle in Afghanistan.
Abu-Musab Al-Zarqawi leg was operated on in Saddam’s personal hospital,he was set up with a safe house,moved into N. Iraq to work with Al-Ansar,and launched attacks from there where one resulted in the killing of a top official in Jordan.
All before we invaded.
Al-Zarqawi ended up becoming one of the most lethal terrorist in history with tens of thousands of deaths associated with his quest to start a civil war in Iraq.
According to getalife/starfleet and the liberal sheep,somehow this does not count.
Kind of like Obama not knowing what the he!! was going on in a church he supported and attended for 20 yrs.
Liberal pretzel logic.
More evidence that the getalife/starfleet crew can’t comprehend:
Bush Did Not Lie!… Saddam Officials Had “Good Relationship” With Zarqawi
…Update: Sen. Bond Responds
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2008/06/bush-did-not-lie-saddam-officials-had.html#comments
The US knew that Al-Qaeda and Al-Zarqawi had a “good relationship” with Saddam Hussein officials before the war:
This document discovered after the invastion shows photos of Al-Qaeda leader Al-Zarqawi. (Dread Pundit Bluto)
ISGZ-2004-019920
2002 Iraqi Intelligence Correspondence concerning the presence of al-Qaida Members in Iraq. Correspondence between IRS members on a suspicion, later confirmed, of the presence of an Al-Qaeda terrorist group. Moreover, it includes photos and names.
More evidence that Bush did not lie.
This time from one of the leading liberal papers in the country,second only to the NY Times:
Bush never lied to us about Iraq
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-kirchick16-2008jun16,0,4808346.story
From the Los Angeles Times
In 2004, the Senate Intelligence Committee unanimously approved a report acknowledging that it “did not find any evidence that administration officials attempted to coerce, influence or pressure analysts to change their judgments.” The following year, the bipartisan Robb-Silberman report similarly found “no indication that the intelligence community distorted the evidence regarding Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.”
Yet Rockefeller’s highly partisan report does not substantiate its most explosive claims. Rockefeller, for instance, charges that “top administration officials made repeated statements that falsely linked Iraq and Al Qaeda as a single threat and insinuated that Iraq played a role in 9/11.” Yet what did his report actually find? That Iraq-Al Qaeda links were “substantiated by intelligence information.” The same goes for claims about Hussein’s possession of biological and chemical weapons, as well as his alleged operation of a nuclear weapons program.
And of course the evidence was so strong against Saddam that leading democrats like Rockefeller considered Saddam an
“Imminent threat”,something Bush did not even go so far as to say:
After all, it was not Bush, but Rockefeller, who said in October 2002: “There has been some debate over how ‘imminent’ a threat Iraq poses. I do believe Iraq poses an imminent threat. I also believe after September 11, that question is increasingly outdated. . . . To insist on further evidence could put some of our fellow Americans at risk. Can we afford to take that chance? I do not think we can.”
All of these interrogation methods have been adapted from the U.S. military’s own Survival Evasion Resistance Escape (or SERE) training program, and have been used for years on thousands of American service members with the full knowledge of Congress. This has created a large body of information about the effect of these techniques, on which the CIA was able to draw in assessing the likely impact on the detainees and ensuring that no severe pain or long term psychological impact would result.
1. The actual intelligence benefits of the CIA program are also detailed in these memos. The CIA believed, evidently with good reason, that the enhanced interrogation program had indeed produced actionable intelligence about al Qaeda’s plans. First among the resulting successes was the prevention of a “second wave” of al Qaeda attacks, to be carried out by an “east Asian” affiliate, which would have involved the crashing of another airplane into a building in Los Angeles.
The interrogation techniques described in these memos are indisputably harsh, but they fall well short of “torture.” They were developed and deployed at a time of supreme peril, as a means of preventing future attacks on innocent civilians both in the U.S. and abroad.
The dedicated public servants at the CIA and Justice Department — who even the Obama administration has concluded should not be prosecuted — clearly cared intensely about staying within the law as well as protecting the American homeland. These memos suggest that they achieved both goals in a manner fully consistent with American values.

Time to apologize to Bush/Cheney!!!!
April 22nd, 2009 at 1:19 pm
RantingTommy says:

aplbotm thinks America is too weak to defend itself without resorting to torture

what a pansy little coward
April 22nd, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Joe Sixpack says:

aplbotm Says:
Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair acknowledged in a memo to the intelligence community that Bush-era interrogation practices yielded had “high-value information,” blah, blah, blah…..
Time to apologize to Bush/Cheney!!!!

Don’t hold your breath, applebottom. Besides, this is just a copy of the Rupublican talking points, bonehead.
April 22nd, 2009 at 1:31 pm
aplbotm says:

So who was tortured?
April 22nd, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Uncle Ho says:

aplbotm says:

Apologize to Bush/Cheney?
Are you out of your phucking mind? Are you an evil monster?

If anything, the US should apologize to the world by hanging Bush/Cheney and ALL their neo-Nazi colleagues.
April 22nd, 2009 at 1:41 pm
tokin librul says:

There are WAY WAY WAY WAY too many busheviks still in positions of power/influence in the “new” regime…

Enough that, in fact, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the Obama tenure will be anything other than Bush-lite…
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Ape-Man says:

looks like the bush administration is an on-going problem. Still damaging government.
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:40 pm
Ape-Man says:

If the law gets gummed up with politics, then consider the impeachments. Wouldn’t it be nice if the republican arm waving about political motives could be avoided altogether! these people are in serious trouble. I don’t think politics will be required. Torturing to obtain false confessions is at the heart of this, and i am NOT surprised anymore.
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:47 pm
ElBruce says:

slippery Says:

I think it’s time to impeach.

Sounds like fun. Go for it. I’d love to see somebody open impeachment of Obama on grounds that the Senate is dragging their feet on approving his appointees.

.

aplbotm Says:

What a long, strange trip it’s been, and here, some years later, we finally get someone in the press to tell it straight: Bush did not lie.

The guy who said “America does not torture?” That guy didn’t lie?

Oh wait, I was going to argue with you, but then clicked your link and found that your post is a total copy/paste job. By the way, the real source should be here. Perhaps I should redirect you to some John Locke and have you duke it out with him?

From the actual source:

Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, set out to provide the official foundation for what has become not only a thriving business but, more important, an article of faith among millions of Americans. And in releasing a committee report Thursday, he claimed to have accomplished his mission, though he did not use the L-word.

“In making the case for war, the administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when it was unsubstantiated, contradicted or even nonexistent,” he said.

The Op-Ed purports to claim that the report says the opposite of what it says.

I’m not going to go through the rest of your textdumps. The first one failed, and you only get one shot. Next time, make your own damn case or at least actually look into what you’re linking/pasting.
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:31 pm
Marie says:

We will see how quickly his replacement will be confirmed.
April 22nd, 2009 at 6:56 pm
wiley says:

Who was tortured?

Hegland’s exhaustive review concludes that most of the detainees are not Afghans and that most were not picked up on the battlefield in Afghanistan. The vast majority were instead captured in Pakistan. Seventy-five of the 132 men are not accused of taking part in hostilities against the United States. The data suggests that maybe 80 percent of these detainees were never al-Qaida members, and many were never even Taliban foot soldiers.

Most detainees are being held for the crime of having “associated” with the Taliban or al-Qaida—often in the most attenuated way, including having known or lived with people assumed to be Taliban, or worked for charities with some ties to al-Qaida. Some had “combat” experience that seems to have consisted solely of being hit by U.S. bombs. Most were not picked up by U.S. forces but handed over to our military by Afghan warlords in exchange for enormous bounties and political payback.

Another detainee “confessed” following an interminable interrogation, shouting: “Fine, you got me; I’m a terrorist.” When the government tried to list this as a confession, his own interrogators were forced to break the outrageous game of telephone and explain it as sarcasm. A Yemeni accused of being a Bin Laden bodyguard eventually “admitted” to having seen Bin Laden five times: “Three times on Al Jazeera and twice on Yemeni news.” His file: “Detainee admitted to knowing Osama Bin Laden.”

They confirm that 86 percent were captured either by the Northern Alliance or by Pakistan “at a time in which the United States offered large bounties for capture of suspected enemies.” They quote a flier, distributed in Afghanistan at the time of the sweeps that reads: “Get wealth and power beyond your dreams … You can receive millions of dollars helping the anti-Taliban forces catch Al Qaida and Taliban murderers. This is enough money to take care of your family, your tribe, your village for the rest of your life. Pay for livestock and doctors and school books.”

But as Hegland reports, by the fall of 2002 it was already common knowledge in the government that “fewer than 10 percent of Guantanamo’s prisoners were high-value terrorist operatives,” according to Michael Scheuer, who headed the agency’s Bin Laden unit from 1999 until he resigned in 2004. Three years later, the government’s own documents reveal that hundreds of hours of ruthless questioning have produced only the quasi-comic, quasi-tragic spectacle of weary prisoners beginning to finger one another.

link

In short, most of the people tortured were just people, in the wrong place at the wrong time, who were sold for a bounty.
April 22nd, 2009 at 10:20 pm
AlexLawyer says:

This is entirely in keeping with Obama’s taste for architects of failed or criminal policies being kept on, purportedly to solve them by doing the same things while calling them something else. Think of Summers, Geithner, Clinton, Gates, Blair et al.
April 22nd, 2009 at 11:04 pm
ElBruce says:

lexLawyer Says:

This is entirely in keeping with Obama’s taste for architects of failed or criminal policies being kept on, purportedly to solve them by doing the same things while calling them something else.

On April 16, President Obama nominated attorney Stephen Preston, although he has not yet been approved by the Senate.

^^^ I’m just going to start copy/pasting that in here in response to every post that didn’t notice it.
April 22nd, 2009 at 11:56 pm

Torture architect John Rizzo is still serving as the CIA’s acting general counsel.

Torture architect John Rizzo is still serving as the CIA’s acting general counsel.

30 Responses to “Torture architect John Rizzo is still serving as the CIA’s acting general counsel.”

Blogroll