Enhanced Interrogation Quotes
At that time in American History, the George W. Bush Justice Department had a small team of lawyers who wrote a legal brief that defined torture in such a way that many of the most common forms of torture were no longer legal torture, even though they had been torture in American law and were again torture after this embarrassing episode of American history. The renamed techniques were called “enhanced interrogation” and a few terrorist suspects were subjected to it before the rules and laws were changed and the “legal opinions” nullified. The FBI and military intelligence did not use the so called enhanced interrogation techniques as they felt that torture produced unreliable intelligence as the victim will say anything the questioner wants to hear to end the torture. They also thought the Justice department memo was sloppy and defective legal work. Senator McCain was a particular expert on torture in that he had, during the Vietnam War, been captured and imprisoned for 7 years during which he had been tortured on several occasions.
In the War on Terror, some CIA officers had gotten a George W, Bush Administration green light to torture some captured terrorists using a torture technique known as “water boarding”—a practice for which American military personnel were court marshaled and convicted in the Philippine War. The torture sessions had been videotaped, a normal procedure with CIA interrogations. The fact of the torture had leaked and a national scandal ensued with Americans on both sides of the question. President Bush and his Vice President publicly stated that the United States does not torture. Rodriguez then ordered the tapes destroyed. Later he gave his reasons after the Obama Administration decided not to investigate the matter or determine which, if any, CIA officials might have broken the law, by wither doing the torturing or destroying evidence—“obstructing justice.”
The George W. Bush administration had issued a memorandum to key Federal Agencies stating that certain types of torture were legal—a finding that was quickly repudiated after Bush and VP Cheney—who was a leading force for allowing torture of terrorism suspects—were out of office. But Bush had told the American People and the World that the United States will not torture any prisoners. The dilemma was “solved” when someone came up with this euphemism.
The reason for these creative phrases was that President George W, Bush had publicly stated that it was United States policy to follow American and International Law and the U. S. does “not torture”. The CIA then decided that it should destroy the videos of the episodes where these euphemisms were used when they were accused of torture and there were calls for prosecution for violation of U. S. law.
