detail their individualized torture programs.
At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.
Powell said through an assistant there were "hundreds of
meetings" on a wide variety of topics and that he was "not at liberty to discuss private meetings."
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transcript
"We had no meetings on torture. It’s constantly said that the meetings—I had an issue with this—we had meetings on what torture to administer. What I recall, the meetings I was in—I was not in all of the meetings and I was not an author of many of the memos that have been written (and some have come out, some have not come out). The only meetings I recall were where we talked about what is it we can do with respect to trying to get information from individuals who were in our custody."
Powell is hiding behind semantics (Bush's/Memos definition of torture)...he claims - "no meetings on torture" and then goes on to say - "The only meetings I recall were where we talked about what is it we can do with respect to trying to get information from individuals who were in our custody"
And how do you get information from people in custody? You interrogate them..and what was Bush's interrogation policy? Torture (so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques")....Powell saying "no meetings on torture" is like Bush saying "We don't torture"...of course you didn't have meetings on torture...you just talked about using enhanced interrogation techniques on people.