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CIA General Counsel Nominee Stands By Torture |
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Written by Staff Writer
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Jun 20, 2007 at 10:09 AM |
John A. Rizzo, the C.I.A's top lawyer, is no stranger to controversy. A graduate of Brown University and the George Washington University Law School, he joined the agency in 1976, when the Church Committee of the Senate had just unearthed the agency’s involvement in assassination plots.
Since becoming senior deputy general counsel, in 1995, Mr. Rizzo has often filled in as acting general counsel. In this time he was involved in deciding the legality of many of the CIA's most controversial actions.
In an August 2002 memo, written by a senior Justice Department lawyer, said that for an interrogation technique to be torture, it must inflict physical pain that is difficult to endure.
Written for then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and shared with the CIA, the memo did not lay out specific techniques that could be used. Yet it drew a blurry line that could not be crossed by defining torture as any technique that produces pain equal to a serious physical injury, such as "organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death."
"As with most legal memos, my reaction was it was an aggressive, expansive reading," Rizzo said. "But I can't say I had any specific objections to any specific parts of it."
After nearly two years, the Justice Department disavowed the document in 2004. Rizzo said he agreed with the conclusion reached then, that the language appeared "over-broad." But asked if he wished he had spoken up about its contents, Rizzo said no.
"I can't honestly sit here today and say I should have objected," he said.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., called Rizzo's response unfortunate. "It seems to me that language on a very straightforward reading is over the line," Wyden said. "That is what I think all of us wanted to hear — that you wish you had objected."
Rizzo's Senate testimony provides the first public window into his perspective on legal questions he wrestled with in the months and years after Sept. 11, 2001. Rizzo spoke before the Senate Intelligence Committee as he made the case that he should become the CIA's top lawyer permanently.
You can watch it here:
The Intelligence Committee is not expected to vote on the nomination until next week at the earliest.
The lone committee member who expressed reservations about voting for Mr. Rizzo was Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California.
Ms. Feinstein said she had concerns about Mr. Rizzo’s role in creating the detention program.
“I believe that one of the reasons we are so hated abroad is because we appear to be hypocrites,” she said. “We say one thing and we practice another.”
The tone of the hearing remained civil throughout.
Toward the end, Mr. Rizzo agreed with Senator Christopher S. Bond of Missouri, ranking Republican on the panel, that too many classified details were leaking out to the news media.
Mr. Rizzo said that trend was causing significant damage to intelligence operations.
He added that members of the executive branch needed to be more disciplined about protecting classified information. “Far too many people,” Mr. Rizzo said, “know far too much.”
Rizzo oversees well over 100 lawyers who provide legal advice on whether the agency should carry out its most secretive programs, including operations to capture or kill terror suspects or use certain interrogation techniques.
At least 96 terror suspects have passed through the CIA's detention and interrogation program since it was created in 2002. The CIA says the program followed U.S. and international law and produced valuable intelligence that has saved lives. Rizzo also testified that he personally issued guidance in 2002 declaring the CIA's interrogation guidelines legal under international law.
But human rights groups have said the CIA's practices amounted to torture, which is an ineffective interrogation method. In one of its most extreme interrogation practices, the CIA is known to have waterboarded the most dangerous detainees — a technique that induces the sensation of drowning.
Sources:
NyTimes
AP
CNN
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Last Updated ( Jun 20, 2007 at 10:12 AM )
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