Zelikow: I Didn’t Ask Rice About 2002 Torture Decisions « The Washington Independent
Author:Suleman ShahReviewer:Han JuJul 31, 202089 Shares9.9K Views
One last thing from today’s Zelikow/Soufan hearing. Phil Zelikow was an aide to Condoleezza Rice when she served as secretary of stateduring George W. Bush’s second term. In his testimony, perhaps unsurprisingly, he portrayed Rice as pushing to restrict the Bush administration’s torture policies. “As Secretary of State, Dr. Rice placed a high priority on changing the national approach to the treatmentof detainees,” Zelikow said in his opening statement, but the department ran into a bureaucratic buzzsaw of opposition from the Pentagon, Justice Department and elsewhere.
Perhaps. But according to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s declassified narrative on torture, Rice, as national security adviser in 2002, was the highest-ranking Bush official to approve torture as a “policy” matter. That approval came on July 17, 2002, *before *the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel gave its legal imprimatur to the torture of Abu Zubaydah. Now, people change their minds all the time, so maybe that’s what happened to Rice, particularly as she became secretary of state and saw what the internationaloutcry from Abu Ghraib meant for U.S. diplomacy. But that’s conjecture. How did the Rice of 2002 evolve into the Rice of 2005 on the issue?
I asked Zelikow after the hearing ended, but he was circumspect. “I did not interrogate Dr. Rice about anything she did in the first Bush administration,” he replied. But he said it would be “useful to find out how the [CIA interrogation] program was understood” by Bush administration policymakers, adding that his experience suggested it was “sold incrementally” to them. The implication — sympathetic as it is to Zelikow’s former boss — is that Rice may not have fully understood what CIA Director George Tenet was asking her to approve.
Suleman Shah
Author
Suleman Shah is a researcher and freelance writer. As a researcher, he has worked with MNS University of Agriculture, Multan (Pakistan) and Texas A & M University (USA). He regularly writes science articles and blogs for science news website immersse.com and open access publishers OA Publishing London and Scientific Times. He loves to keep himself updated on scientific developments and convert these developments into everyday language to update the readers about the developments in the scientific era. His primary research focus is Plant sciences, and he contributed to this field by publishing his research in scientific journals and presenting his work at many Conferences.
Shah graduated from the University of Agriculture Faisalabad (Pakistan) and started his professional carrier with Jaffer Agro Services and later with the Agriculture Department of the Government of Pakistan. His research interest compelled and attracted him to proceed with his carrier in Plant sciences research. So, he started his Ph.D. in Soil Science at MNS University of Agriculture Multan (Pakistan). Later, he started working as a visiting scholar with Texas A&M University (USA).
Shah’s experience with big Open Excess publishers like Springers, Frontiers, MDPI, etc., testified to his belief in Open Access as a barrier-removing mechanism between researchers and the readers of their research. Shah believes that Open Access is revolutionizing the publication process and benefitting research in all fields.
Han Ju
Reviewer
Hello! I'm Han Ju, the heart behind World Wide Journals. My life is a unique tapestry woven from the threads of news, spirituality, and science, enriched by melodies from my guitar. Raised amidst tales of the ancient and the arcane, I developed a keen eye for the stories that truly matter. Through my work, I seek to bridge the seen with the unseen, marrying the rigor of science with the depth of spirituality.
Each article at World Wide Journals is a piece of this ongoing quest, blending analysis with personal reflection. Whether exploring quantum frontiers or strumming chords under the stars, my aim is to inspire and provoke thought, inviting you into a world where every discovery is a note in the grand symphony of existence.
Welcome aboard this journey of insight and exploration, where curiosity leads and music guides.
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