Condoleezza Rice: “We Did Not Torture Anyone”
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Stanford University students this week button-holed former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice … grilling her on Bush-era interrogation decisions in this video posted to YouTube.
It’s the first time anyone has gotten Rice on the record about the interrogation tactics since the Obama administration released the memos.
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May 1st, 2009 at 1:10 am
Wow, she is evil, and alot of misdirection with her hand gesture- trying to confuse, distract and break the speaker chain of thought. Also she was the one not answering question put to her but as always bringing up 9/11 to justify any action against any people. . . politicians huh! Very slippery and slimy :p
May 1st, 2009 at 1:11 pm
The point to note from this student video is that Presidential authorizations are only empowered by the constitution and the law and it isn’t the case that a president’s written order or verbal command or whatever always stands up as a legal, constitutional presidential authorization.
It isn’t the case that the word of the president alone becomes law because the president in a constitutional republic has limited powers and not the unlimited powers of a dictator or a monarch.
I am not a lawyer so I cannot say for sure whether US or international law outlaws waterboarding or not (though I trust it IS outlawed) but if it is illegal then the president couldn’t just overrule the law by saying – “it’s OK, I’m the president saying you can do it, so that makes it legal”.
To summarize I would say it sounds like Condi was fed some flimsy legal arguments in 2002 to justify the “enhanced interrogation” techniques thought to be expedient at the time but which many people would see as torture.
However Condi did not simply lap up those flimsy legal arguments. She was fed them but they did not sit well in her stomach so she spat them out soon enough when it was polite to do so.
Meanwhile, conveying the president’s wishes to the CIA in 2002, Condi was acting as little more than a messenger, so don’t shoot the messenger.
Condi also mentions that the authorization was subject to the Justice Department’s clearance so if they cleared it, and they are the lawyers responsible then it is their fault for not giving better legal advice.
The Justice Department should have said “no way is waterboarding legal” and their failure to do so has brought us to this point.
It needs to be understood that the National Security Advisor job Condi was doing in 2002 has no executive command responsibilities.
Condi could not tell the CIA what to do because only the President gives the orders and only the Director of Central Intelligence, a.k.a. “the Director of the CIA”, (then George Tenet), directed the CIA how to interrogate people.
When Condi became Secretary of State in 2005 she was in a more powerful position which she put to good use to put a stop to torture.
All Condi’s public statements were unequivocally anti-torture and every time she spoke out against torture she stripped away more of the political cover those like Cheney inside the administration who were backing torture had.
In due course, the Bush-Cheney-CIA torturers were exposed for all to see how low they had stooped and the “enhanced interrogation” policy collapsed – thanks to Condi’s public leadership against torture.
But it wasn’t just that Condi argued publicly against torture – she also made moves inside the administration to get it stopped as soon as she had the power to do so.
As can been heard in this recent TV interview by Philip Zelikow for MSNBC – part 1, part 2 when Condi became Secretary of State and actually had some administrative authority in the administration (NSA is just an advisor) she put him (Zelikow) on the job of turning the Bush administration policy away from enhanced interrogation because she had grave concerns about the whole thing.
In other words, Condi used the power she had, which was limited, to do the right thing and that is EXACTLY what you need from a president.
Bush and Condi are different people altogether. Condi would not have picked Cheney as her VP and if somehow she had been lumped with a VP Cheney she would not have delegated to Cheney supervision of the CIA. That is my firm belief.
I don’t know who Condi would pick as VP but that chap Zelikow is a long-time friend and colleague of Condi’s and she has plenty of other highly talented people to pick from. She wouldn’t pick a Cheney so we can trust her as President.
I don’t think Condi would pick Sarah Palin for VP either.
Peter Dow,
Group owner
Rice for President Yahoo Group”Condoleezza Rice for President in 2012. Join this group of supporters from everywhere on the world wide web.”
May 16th, 2009 at 11:03 am
Condi for crimes against humanity. Her along with Bush, Cheney, Rowe, Rumsfeld, Yoo, et al. Bring them to justice or we are all screwed cause silence is acceptance people. No 1 is above the law unless u write the laws (as we are seeing here). Oxymoron = war crimes cause all war is a crime or war is a racket (Right smedley butler)