SNAFU

An anonymous source told NPR that in April and May of 2002 CIA contractor James Mitchell sought approval on a daily basis for so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” via top-secret cables to the CIA’s counterterrorism center. The CIA forwarded those cables to the White House, according to National Public Radio, and Gonzales would approve the technique, thus granting a legal basis for Mitchell’s actions – in theory at least.

Yesterday, the CIA sent the ACLU a document that corroborates the source’s account.

[...]

Last week, former FBI interrogator Ali Soufan told Congress that CIA contractors “had to keep requesting authorization to use harsher and harsher methods.” Zubaydah,

[...]

Spencer Ackerman, writing for the Washington Independent, notes that at the time of these early Zubaydah interrogations Gonzales wasn’t “the chief legal official for the government.”

“He was the president’s lawyer, powerless to bless the actions of a federal agency like the CIA,” Ackerman writes.

[...]

“I can’t believe the CIA would have settled for a piece of paper from the counsel to the president,” [another] former government official told NPR. “If that were true,” says the former official, “then the whole legal and policy review process from April through August would have been a complete charade.”

[...]

[A]ccording to Bradford Berenson, who worked in the White House counsel’s office under President Bush. “These were highly unusual and extraordinary times after 9/11.”

  Raw Story

And if we can’t torture in “highly unusual and extraordinary times,” then when can we?

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.