Condi guilty of authorizing torture and lying about it...? D'oh...!

i've done extensive blogging on condi's spin and prevarications on the matter of torture, her denials about her role in it, and her bald-faced lies about the u.s. use of it (see my archive here)... nonetheless, for anyone who's paid the slightest bit of attention, the facts have been plain to see going back at least four years... so, what do we have now...? still more evidence... sigh...

mcclatchy has the scoop...

A newly declassified narrative of the Bush administration's advice to the CIA on harsh interrogations shows that the small group of Justice Department lawyers who wrote memos authorizing harsh interrogation techniques were operating not on their own but with direction from top administration officials, including then-Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.

At the same time, the narrative suggests that then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and then-Secretary of State Colin Powell were largely left out of the decision-making process.

The narrative, posted Wednesday on the Senate Intelligence Committee's Web site and released by its former chairman, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., came as Attorney General Eric Holder told reporters that he'd "follow the evidence wherever it takes us" in deciding whether to prosecute any Bush administration officials who authorized harsh techniques that are widely considered torture.

In a statement accompanying the narrative's release, Rockefeller said the task of declassifying interrogation and detention opinions "is not complete" and urged prompt declassification of other opinions from 2006 and 2007 that he said would show how Bush Justice Department officials interpreted laws governing torture and war crimes.

meanwhile, the tug of war over whether or not to uphold accountability and the rule of law soldiers on...

As the narrative was released, various civil liberties and liberal activist organizations said they planned to present Holder on Thursday with 250,000 petition signatures calling for the appointment of an independent prosecutor to lead a criminal investigation into alleged torture.

Meanwhile, Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and independent Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut wrote to Obama urging him not to prosecute Bush officials who offered legal advice about CIA interrogations.

While the senators deemed some of the legal analyses "deeply flawed," they said that criminalizing bad legal opinions "would have a deeply chilling effect on the ability of lawyers in any administration to provide their client — the U.S. government — with their best legal advice."

ok... so, what about criminalizing bad legal opinions that were COMMISSIONED BY CRIMINALS...? if you're ASKED to write bad legal opinions, and you KNOW they're bad legal opinions, aren't you accountable if you CHOOSE TO WRITE THEM ANYWAY...? hmmmmmmm...???

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