Bush Administration Blocked Waterboard Critic (from ABC)

[mod mom]

By Peter Sheehy and Will Thomas - November 5, 2007, 9:49AM
ABC’s “The Blotter” asserts that “only three have been waterboarded.” Make that four, if you include Daniel Levin, the acting assistant attorney general in 2004. Levin, tasked with reworking the administration’s legal position on torture, was so concerned about the use of waterboarding that he took the plunge himself. Levin, who was shocked by the controlled drowning, penned a new memo calling “torture abhorrent,” but stopped short of calling waterboarding either torture or illegal. And, well, the administration quickly replaced him. (ABC “The Blotter,” ABC News)

http://tpmmuckraker.com/


Bush Administration Blocked Waterboarding Critic
Former DOJ Official Tested the Method Himself, in Effort to Form Torture Policy


(ABC News Photo Illustration)
From World News with Charles Gibson
By JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG and ARIANE de VOGUE
Nov. 2, 2007

A senior Justice Department official, charged with reworking the administration's legal position on torture in 2004 became so concerned about the controversial interrogation technique of waterboarding that he decided to experience it firsthand, sources told ABC News.

Daniel Levin, then acting assistant attorney general, went to a military base near Washington and underwent the procedure to inform his analysis of different interrogation techniques.

After the experience, Levin told White House officials that even though he knew he wouldn't die, he found the experience terrifying and thought that it clearly simulated drowning.



-snip

In December 2004, Levin released the new memo. He said, "Torture is abhorrent" but he went on to say in a footnote that the memo was not declaring the administration's previous opinions illegal. The White House, with Alberto Gonzales as the White House counsel, insisted that this footnote be included in the memo.

-snip

http://www.abcnews.go.com/WN/DOJ/story?id=3814076&page=1

[spotbird]

1. This can be posted as LBN

as well.

[NNN0LHI]

2. Its from Nov. 2, 2007

And I still do not trust ABC.

Don

[mod mom]

3. I found it at TPM Muck.

I did post it on LBN just now. I did a search and didn't find it.

[spotbird]

7. Woops, I missed that. NT

[L. Coyote]

4. "USA Torture Day" A MASS waterboarding protest organized nationally for the Mukasey vote? ??

Would you be willing to undergo waterboarding as the Senate Judiciary votes on Mukasey?
How many people around the country and the world would you expect to participate?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2208375

[MoonRiver]

5. * new moniker here:

I :loveya: torture.

[sakabatou]

6. Why does Bush love Torure?

[Orsino]

8. Because he's infatuated with the idea of manliness...

...and does his poor best to simulate it. Concern for helpless prisoners is "weak" in his book, and in the tiny minds of his supporters, and any check on his absolute power is unacceptable.

[The Stranger]

9. Hey, can the Nancy Disaster put impeachment back on the table?

[sniffa]

10. fucking sickening

what the fuck happened to my country? :puke: