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Condi Was First to OK Waterboarding

Condi gave go-ahead before Rumsfeld, Powell even knew about it: Senate

By Rob Quinn, Newser Staff

Posted Apr 23, 2009 2:39 AM CDT

(Newser) – Condoleezza Rice played a greater role than she has acknowledged in the CIA's harsh interrogation program, and approved the use of waterboarding, according to a newly released report from the Senate Intelligence Committee. The report finds that Rice, as national security adviser, verbally approved the CIA's request to waterboard a captured al-Qaeda member in 2002, making her the first known Bush adminstration official to do so.

Rice told the Senate Armed Services Committee last fall only that she attended meetings where waterboarding was discussed, and said she didn't recall details. The Intelligence Committee's timeline—which notes that dissenting legal opinions were brushed aside—found that then-Secretary of State Colin Powell and then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld were not briefed on the CIA's interrogation program until September 2003, long after it had begun.

[Images (2)]

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Then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, talks with reporters at the White House in this 2001 file photo. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)

Condoleezza Rice was the earliest known Bush administration official to approve waterboarding, according to a newly declassified Senate Intellligence Committee report. (AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev)

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Strikingly, unless there is a further story in records not yet shown to us, the secretary of state and the secretary of defense were not involved in the decision-making process, despite the high stakes for US foreign policy.
- Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.)

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Condi Was First to OK Waterboarding