Ex-CIA agent: Zubaydah waterboarded before DoJ memos approved

By GottaLaff

There are reports popping out everywhere that all seem to be revealing the same thing: BushCo broke the law. I sense a theme:

A former U.S. intelligence agent said in a report published Monday that terror suspect Abu Zubaydah was subjected to simulated drowning months before the Bush administration’s Department of Justice had written memos approving the use of waterboarding.

The claim strikes a serious blow to repeated Bush administration arguments that no laws were broken in the torture of prisoners because legal guidelines had been closely followed.

Former Central Intelligence Agency officer John Kiriakou, speaking with BBC’s Panorama, said that internal communications detailed Zubaydah’s torture beginning “at the very end of May or the very beginning of June 2002.”

Bush administration lawyers did not issue memorandum supportive of torture — a war crime under the Geneva Convention relative to the treatment of prisoners of war — until August of that year.

Kiriakou said that President Bush had personally given written authorization for Zubaydah’s torture.

So much for "following the law".

As you know by now, I am passionate about holding those accountable who were responsible for authorizing the torture and brutality. All of them.

All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.

If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.