ACCORDING TO THIS ARTICLE FROM THE GUARDIAN, the Bush Administration was already supporting torturing suspects back in 1998. “The report criticises the Bush administration’s approval of practices which would be illegal if carried out by British agents. It shows that in 1998, the year Bin Laden was indicted in the US, Britain insisted that the policy of treating prisoners humanely should include him. But the CIA never gave the assurances.”
The Guardian article suffers from both the Guardian’s anti-American slant, and the Guardian’s typically crappy writing, but everything in it could be, more or less, correct. Here is the nut of the matter:
The report criticises the Bush administration’s approval of practices which would be illegal if carried out by British agents. It shows that in 1998, the year Bin Laden was indicted in the US, Britain insisted that the policy of treating prisoners humanely should include him. But the CIA never gave the assurances.
It divides into two parts: First, that in 1998, when bin Laden was indicted, (and he was), the CIA at that time refused to renounce torture if he were captured.
Second, the report didn’t like the Bush administration’s approval of practices that would be illegal in Britain. Although the two items are conflated, they are not claimed by the reporter to be connected
I think it entirely possible that the Brits refused to hand over info to the US because the CIA refused the guarantees Britain wanted. The fact that the Guardian (deliberately?) leaves out is that it was the Clinton CIA that tendered the refusal.
Maybe somebody should ask Hillary about this. After all, she was one half of the Two! Two! Two Presidents in One! Clinton administration.
Next question: Did the Clintons support torture as a matter of policy?
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Sure they did, as long as they didn’t have to get their hands dirty. The practice of rendition so that the wogs no liberal expects better of could do the torturing was begun by them.
The report doesn’t say what the Guardian says it does. It does not state that the CIA “never gave assurances”. It says that the British lacked enough intelligence to make the operation feasible. Quoting directly from the report:
I already e-mailed Glenn about this, but either he didn’t see it or doesn’t care to make an update noting that the Guardian improperly paraphrased the report.