“Well, we started to connect the dots in order to protect the American people. And yes, I’m aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved,” George Bush said to ABC News White House correspondent Martha Raddatz late on Friday:
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….
The high-level discussions about [the torture 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.
Constitutional expert Jonathan Turley has described the drafting of torture guidelines by White House officials as a war crime. In addition to Bush, the officials at the meetings, which started in 2002, included Vice Pres. Dick Cheney, Sec. of State Colin Powell, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Sec. Donald Rumsfeld, Attorney Gen. John Ashcroft, CIA Director George Tenet, and their aides.