George Tenet created false torture timeline as he left CIA directorr job
Emptywheel reports a discovery that former CIA Director George Tenet created false start for the torture program in a memo created as he was leaving the CIA:
[H]ere’s the parts of the second page of the memo that aren’t redacted (all the rest except the date, sender, and addressee are redacted:
3. As you know, beginning in September 2002, the Justice Department authorized CIA in its discretion, to employ on selected HVDs [Redaction ~3 lines] waterboard, [Redaction ~2 lines] CIA has reserved use of these [Redaction] techniques to elicit ongoing threat information from the most hardcore, senior terrorist figures that have been captured– men such as Khalid Sheik Muhammad, Abu Zubaydeh, [Redaction ~ 7 lines] key members of Congress have been briefed from the beginning–CIA informed the leadership of the Congressional Intelligence Committees of the existence and nature of the Program when it commenced in late 2002, in early 2003 when members of the leadership changed, and again in September 2003.
Of course, the torture program began long before September 2002, some time in March or perhaps April, as they experimented on Abu Zubaydah.
Even then they were obsessed to create legal cover.
May 27th, 2009