There's not much to say about this:In an interview [December 10] with ABC News, John Kiriakou -- the CIA official who headed the team that interrogated al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah [photo] -- said that Zubaydah was waterboarded ... Kiriakou says he now views what he did as torture and says that he would not recommend those tactics going forward. ... In an interview with Matt Lauer [December 11] on The Today Show ... Lauer asked Kiriakou where the permission was given to carry out torture. "Was the White House involved in that decision?" Lauer asked. "Absolutely," Kiriakou said, adding:Alternet has the video.This isn't something done willy nilly. It's not something that an agency officer just wakes up in the morning and decides he's going to carry out an enhanced technique on a prisoner. This was a policy made at the White House, with concurrence from the National Security Council and Justice Department.
Ex-CIA Interrogator: We Tortured Because The White House Told Us To