[link|http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/06/22/rumsfeld.memo/index.html|They're releasing documentation! Damn!]

Excerpt:

Meanwhile, a source told CNN that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
never approved a controversial interrogation technique called "water
boarding." That source had told CNN the opposite Monday.

The senior defense official who provided the original information to CNN
now says Rumsfeld only approved "mild, noninjurious physical contact"
with a high-level al Qaeda detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and
specifically did not approve a request to use water boarding.

The tactic involves strapping a prisoner down and immersing him in water
to make the subject feel as though he is drowning.

The documents released Tuesday, as described by administration
officials, help to show what ideas were discussed versus what was
actually rubber-stamped by the White House in terms of the legal limits
of interrogation.

"We want to drive home what was approved and what was speculated about.
It is a distinction that has been lost," one official told CNN.

I say:

The releasing of documents to the public can only serve the truth,
whatever the truth turns out to be, assuming that there are people
who take the time to study those documents. Some have used massive
document dumps as a delaying tactic - Clinton and Saddam are two
noteworthy examples. Their results were rather mixed. Also, Leahy
complains that there's too little here, not too much. So it doesn't
sound like that kind of dump.

The timing may be significant. First let the mainstream press make the
charges, then let them foam at the mouth for a while while everyone's
watching, then release some documents or testify before Congress. Is
it a set up? The spin war version of ambuscade?

By the way, [link|http://www.naplesnews.com/npdn/pe_columnists/article/0,2071,NPDN_14960_2985533,00.html|Morton Kondracke] is calling for more.

It's nice of CNN to publish this retraction, although they did of
course bury it a bit. We expect so little of them these days, it's
refreshing when they exhibit even token honesty.

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