McClellan testifies before the House Judiciary Committee

From Salon:

Scott McClellan found himself in an unfamiliar position on Friday. There were reporters hanging on his words, and lights and cameras focused on him, but he was criticizing the Bush administration, not defending it.

McClellan, the former White House press secretary, came back to national attention recently when the contents of his tell-all book, “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception,” leaked, showing he’d become a strong critic of the Bush administration since he left it in 2006. And because of those criticisms, the House Judiciary Committee called him to testify to see if he could shed any light on certain subjects, especially the leak of the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame. read more

McClellan before the House Judiciary Committee:

Bruce Fein discusses the implications on The Real News:

White House States Waterboarding is Legal

This is a couple of days old, but important:

From the LA Times 

The assertion stuns critics and revives debate over the widely condemned interrogation technique.

By Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
February 7, 2008

WASHINGTON — The White House said Wednesday that the widely condemned interrogation technique known as waterboarding is legal and that President Bush could authorize the CIA to resume using the simulated-drowning method under extraordinary circumstances.

The surprise assertion from the Bush administration reopened a debate that many in Washington had considered closed. Two laws passed by Congress in recent years — as well as a Supreme Court ruling on the treatment of detainees — were widely interpreted to have banned the CIA’s use of the extreme interrogation method.

But in remarks that were greeted with disbelief by some members of Congress and human rights groups, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said that waterboarding was a legal technique that could be employed again “under certain circumstances.”

Fratto said the nation’s top intelligence officials “didn’t rule anything out” during congressional testimony Tuesday on CIA interrogation methods, and he indicated that Bush might consider reauthorizing waterboarding or other harsh techniques in extreme cases, such as when there is “belief that an attack might be imminent.”

For years, White House officials denied that the U.S. had engaged in torture but always stopped short of confirming whether waterboarding had been used. The administration’s latest stance — described by Fratto during the daily White House briefing — was denounced Wednesday by key lawmakers. “This is a black mark on the United States,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “The White House is trying to give themselves as much of an open field here as possible. It says to others that we are prepared to use the same kinds of tactics used by the most repressive regimes and the most heinous regimes.”

The White House comments came one day after CIA Director Michael V. Hayden testified publicly for the first time that the agency had used waterboarding on Al Qaeda suspects in 2002 and 2003. He also identified three prisoners, including self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who he said were the only detainees subjected to the method.

Waterboarding refers to a practice that involves strapping down a prisoner, placing a cloth over his face and dousing him with water to simulate the sensation of drowning. The technique has been traced to the Spanish Inquisition and has been the subject of war-crimes trials dating back a century.

The White House position on the issue is in some ways consistent with its long-standing efforts to expand executive power and resist attempts by Congress to rein in the president’s authority.  more