RI Lawmaker: Let's Waterboard Bush for Charity

Videos of sessions are 'sickening,' says lawyer

(NEWSER) - The Saudi national accused of being the "20th hijacker" on 9/11 is suing the government to release what his lawyers call "sickening" videos of his torture at Guantanamo Bay. Mohammed al-Qahtani was the victim of "torture and other profoundly cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment," involving marathon interrogation sessions, sleep deprivation, extreme temperatures, and "sexual and moral" humiliations, according to the suit filed in Manhattan Federal Court by the Center for Constitutional Rights. "The American public should be permitted to see what occurred for itself," says the suit. More»

That torture is still being debated is Obama's fault, says Andrew Cohen

(NEWSER) - Just a day after Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann said they supported waterboarding , President Obama re-affirmed that the procedure is torture and "contrary to America's traditions," reports the AP . Obama and his administration have said that waterboarding is torture and illegal since taking office, but after several Republican candidates revived the subject in Saturday night's foreign policy debate, the president re-stated his position in a news conference at Hawaii's APEC meeting. More»

But detected deadly White House toxin turned out to be false alarm

(NEWSER) - Condoleezza Rice recounted the day that she, President Bush, and Dick Cheney believed they had been exposed to a lethal toxin by terrorists. Cheney suddenly appeared on a secure video conference screen just weeks after 9/11 while Rice and Bush were traveling in China for the APEC summit. He warned them that White House sensors had detected botulinum toxin, and "we all—those of us exposed—were going to die," Rice revealed in an ABC interview . "I remember everybody just sort of freezing, and the president saying, ‘What was that? What was that, Dick?’” recalled Rice, who was national security adviser at the time. “We were just a little unnerved." More»

She recalls clashes with Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush

(NEWSER) - It's time for Dick Cheney to take a little return fire from Condi Rice. Less than 2 months after his memoir described her as turning tearful during a political discussion , Condoleezza Rice has written her own book, No Higher Honor, which comes out next month, the New York Times reports. Rice recalls White House clashes and encounters with creepy foreign leaders:

• Rice argued with "ultra-hawkish" Cheney that terrorism suspects can't just be "disappeared"; President Bush agreed, and moved several from secret prisons to Guantanamo Bay.
• Rice opposed increasing troop levels in Iraq, telling Bush, "If they want to have a civil war we're going to have to let them." The president appeared pained over a war going badly, she writes.

Canada to Amnesty: No way, eh

(NEWSER) - George W. Bush is visiting Canada next week and international law requires the country to arrest him for torture and war crimes ... according to Amnesty International. The group has sent a thousand-page memorandum to Canadian authorities explaining why the former president should be behind bars, Politico reports. Bush's own memoirs detail how he authorized the use of torture on terror suspects, Amnesty Canada's secretary-general says. More»