Reply #30: Michael Chertoff Played Integral Role in Authorizing Torture

[L. Coyote]

Another person who may face felony charges for lying to Congress,
and who may have been protected by the destruction of evidence.

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Michael Chertoff Played Integral Role in Authorizing Torture
16 March 2009 - Jason Leopold - http://www.pubrecord.org/torture/760.html?task=view


In the summer of 2002, Michael Chertoff, then head of the Justice Department's Criminal Division, offered assurances to the CIA that its interrogators would not face prosecution under anti-torture laws if they followed guidelines on aggressive techniques approved by the Department’s Office of Legal Counsel ....

Those guidelines stretched the rules on permissible treatment of detainees by narrowly defining torture as intense pain equivalent to organ failure or death......

Four years ago, when Chertoff was facing confirmation hearings to be Homeland Security chief, the New York Times cited three senior-level government sources as describing Chertoff’s Criminal Division as fielding questions from the CIA about whether its officers risked prosecution if they employed certain harsh techniques .... Chertoff appears to have green-lighted the technique known as “waterboarding,” which has been regarded as torture since the days of the Spanish Inquisition

.... Chertoff denied providing the CIA with legal guidance on the use of specific interrogation methods, such as waterboarding .... evidence continues to build that Chertoff’s assurances gave CIA interrogators confidence they would avoid prosecution ...