As Report Shows Bybee's Torture Culpability, Conyers Says: 'We're Coming After These Guys'
Bush administration attorney Jay Bybee, now a judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals serving a lifetime appointment, crafted legal justifications for torture after intelligence officials began to adapt techniques already deemed illegal by U.S. and international law, according to a report released Tuesday evening by the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The 232-page report leaves no doubt that the interrogation techniques were torture and were long known to be illegal. The Bush administration's program of torture was "reverse engineered," in the words of Richard Shiffrin, the general counsel for intelligence for the Department of Defense in 2002, from communist Chinese techniques designed to elicit false confessions. In that respect, the program worked well, as tortured detainees told officials whatever they could think of and sent CIA agents chasing bogus tips around the globe, according to press reports.