Bush Says We Torture And That's OK

A tremendous amount of new info on how the US became a torture state in these last 7 years has been coming out in the last few weeks.

Most recently ABC has discussed discussions in the White House where Rummy, Rice, Cheney and Ashcroft reviewed and approved interogation tchniques that are considered 'torture' under international law. (Ashcroft once again comes across as the sanest man in the room to give you a sense of how 1984 this has all become)

Today, while the world worries about whether Obama's acknowledgement that blue collar people are angry, alienated and love their Guns and their God is somehow a sign that he's out of touch, our President acknowledges that he OK'd what was discussed in those meetings.

President Bush says he knew his top national security advisers discussed and approved specific details about how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, according to an exclusive interview with ABC News Friday.

"Well, we started to connect the dots in order to protect the American people." Bush told ABC News White House correspondent Martha Raddatz. "And yes, I'm aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved."

As first reported by ABC News Wednesday, the most senior Bush administration officials repeatedly discussed and approved specific details of exactly how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the CIA.

The high-level discussions about these "enhanced interrogation techniques" were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed -- down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.

These top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects -- whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding, sources told ABC news.

... the Principals Committee included Vice President Dick Cheney, former National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft

As the national security adviser, Rice chaired the meetings, which took place in the White House Situation Room and were typically attended by most of the principals or their deputies.

The so-called Principals who participated in the meetings also approved the use of "combined" interrogation techniques -- using different techniques during interrogations instead of using one method at a time -- on terrorist suspects who proved difficult to break, sources said.

If you haven't been following this please read the rest here to get a good background.