I'm trying to keep track of all the Bush-era news today: what to do with the military commissions, what the CIA did or didn't tell Congress about waterboarding, how to handle those photos of abused detainees. The so-called war on terrorism was rather messy on George W. Bush and Dick Cheney's watch. And the cleanup job isn't easy. Below is a look at just one of the many subplots that I posted elsewhere today:

Here's a good example of what's been wrong with congressional oversight of the intelligence agencies for decades: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the CIA did not tell her at a September 2002 briefing (when she was the senior Democrat on the House intelligence committee) that it had used waterboarding on a captured al Qaeda operative; the CIA says it did. And this dispute apparently cannot be settled. From The Washington Post:

Government officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss classified briefings, suggested that the record might never be clear as to what Pelosi and [Republican Rep. Porter] Goss were told. One official familiar with the congressional briefings acknowledged the difficulty of establishing exactly what lawmakers were told. Internal CIA memos about the briefings were "not designed to be stenography" but were based on recollections after the fact, the official said. There were no recordings or precise transcripts, he said.

It's not often that reading a government memo makes you want to cheer. But two memos related to the use of torture released on Tuesday at a congressional hearing were rather heartening. They offered evidence that there were dissidents inside the Bush administration when it came to using waterboarding and other excessive interrogation techniques on detainees. Written in 2005 by three senior officials at the State Department and Pentagon, the memos are a reminder that even within the administration of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, debate sometimes ensued. Still, the dissenters lost.

It's quasi-encouraging that someone was making the case for decency and rule of law. The first memo--written in 2005 by Philip Zelikow, then a senior adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; John Bellinger, Rice's legal adviser at the time; and Gordon England, then a deputy defense secretary--argued that the United States should "choose--as a matter of policy--to treat...captives...as if they were civilian detainees under the rule of law," in accordance with the Geneva Conventions. And their point was not that international law dictated such treatment--though it might--but that this made the most sense for the United States. As they wrote in all-caps:

WE ARE NOT SAYING THAT THESE DETAINEES ARE NECESSARILY ENTITLED TO THIS STATUS. TO BE CLEAR; WE ARE GIVING THEM A TEMPORARY STATUS THEY DO NOT DESERVE. BUT WE ARE NOT DOING THIS FOR THEM. WE ARE DOING IT FOR US.

Such an approach, they maintained, would be "one that Americans and the world are more likely to understand and accept as reasonable."

They conceded that human treatment of detainees could in some cases produce less, rather than more, intelligence. But they recommended being grown-up about the cost-benefit trade-off:

At the White House press briefing on Monday, CNN's Ed Henry asked a question that I had tried to put to Obama's press team on Friday, after press secretary Robert Gibbs had declined to call on me: Where are those torture documents Dick Cheney wants?

The ex-veep-who-won't-go-away has been saying in interviews that he's requested the release of two classified CIA documents that supposedly outline all the essential intelligence that was produced by torture-assisted interrogations. (He, of course, does not call it torture.)

In response to Henry, Gibbs had no information to share. "I'll check on where that is," he said.

I've been reading the torture memos released yesterday by the Obama administration, which has also signaled it will not be chasing any past government employee for possible torture-related charges. I noted Thursday the tortured legal reasoning that led the Bush Justice Department in a 2002 memo to tell the CIA that it was just fine to use "the waterboard." (For a gander at what an old-fashioned waterboard looks like, click here. In 2006, I was the first blogger/journalist to post pictures of traditional waterboards used in torture sessions by the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia.) That memo also provided rules for CIA interrogators who wanted to place a terrorist suspect in a "confinement box" with insects. FYI: this memo was signed by Jay Bybee, then the assistant attorney general, now a federal appellate court judge.

Reading the memos is a dispiriting exercise. It shows how government lawyers applied their smarts to turn black into white. The Bush Justice Department breaks down the coercive interrogation techniques the CIA was using into mind-numbingly small details in order to approve them within an ultra-narrow legalistic framework. Waterboarding is not really painful, for instance, because it only provides a brief sensation of suffocation, lasting no more than a few dozen seconds. In other words, detainees, get over it!

But if you step back and look at these practices as a whole, they do seem to fit a reasonable person's conception of torture. For example, a detainee, according to the memos, could be handcuffed and shackled--with the handcuffs attached to a chain from the ceiling--and forced to stand naked (except for an adult diaper) for 180 hours in order to deprive him of sleep (not, mind you, to induce pain). Then this person could be thrown against a "flexible false wall" a few times. He could be slapped in the face and abdomen. He could be placed in a cramped space. He could be doused with water as cold as 41 degrees Fahrenheit. And then waterboarded. Throughout all this, the detainee, according to the memos, would be carefully monitored by CIA medical personnel to make sure he is not truly harmed. And the rules discussed in the Justice Department memos do indicate the CIA med teams were supposed to be fastidious and prudent. (If the detainee suffered swelling in his legs or feet because of being forced to stand for too long, he would be shackled in a sitting or horizontal position in which he could not sleep.)

But if you ponder that scenario in total, it sure seems like torture--or, at least, something close enough to torture that it should not be employed. Yes, none of this is the equivalent of whacking a guy in the genitals with a tennis racket. (See Casino Royale.) But it's certainly not the type of activity a high-minded nation ought to sanction at the highest levels of its government--and lawyer so slyly.

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Should the new Obama Administration dig through all the dark ugliness of the Bush-Cheney years--torture, renditions, the destruction of evidence, etc.--and start prosecuting former Bush officials, including the veep? I appeared on MSNBC's Hardball with hawk-of-all-hawks Frank Gaffney Jr. to discuss the matter.

By the way, if you haven't seen Stephen Hayes piece in which Cheney grouses about Bush not pardoning Scooter Libby, check it out. The article is a hoot. I encourage Hayes, Cheney's sympathetic chronicler-in-chief, to fuel more feuding between this out-of-power couple.

Yesterday, I posted a piece noting that Leon Panetta, Barack Obama's choice as CIA director, could draw opposition from CIA insiders and vets because he has been a fierce foe of waterboarding (a torture tactic used by the CIA), has advocated greater congressional oversight of CIA covert operations, and in the 1990s, as President Clinton's budget chief, pushed for cuts in the CIA's budget. Yet the first important blasts came from Democrats. Both Senator Dianne Feinstein, the incoming chair of the Senate intelligence committee, and Senator Jay Rockefeller, the outgoing chair of the committee, huffed that Panetta was no intelligence professional.

Their knee-jerk response--which seemed to contain a resentful dose of no-one-in-the-Obama-camp-asked-me-about-this--could give cover to those who object to Panetta on policy grounds and to CIA people who don't want an outsider taking control of a troubled agency that screwed the pooch on 9/11 and Iraq WMDs. Remember Curveball?

My CQ blogger colleague Jeff Stein raises a good point:

From George W. Bush's second inaugural address:

So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world....

All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: the United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you. Democratic reformers facing repression, prison, or exile can know: America sees you for who you are: the future leaders of your free country.

From Sunday's New York Times story on the Bush administration's response to General Musharraf's crackdown in Pakistan (which includes suspending the country's Constitution, dismissing the chief justice, and calling out the national police):

"We were clear that we did not support it," Ms. Rice said, speaking to reporters aboard a flight from Istanbul to Israel [on Saturday], where she is traveling for regional talks. "We were clear that we didn't support it because it would take Pakistan away from the path of democratic rule."

But even as she criticized General Musharraf's power grab, Ms. Rice stopped short of outright condemnation of General Musharraf himself, even going so far as to credit him for doing "a lot"--in the past--toward preparing Pakistan for what she called a “path to democratic rule."

Doing "a lot" in the past? Such as seizing control of previously democratic government? And while Rice was getting nostalgic about Musharraf and the good ol' days, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe called Musharraf's actions--the equivalent of declaring martial law--"very disappointing." The next day, the Bush administration sent Musharraf this message: Don't worry; you'll still going to receive billions of dollars in U.S. aid, even as you detain human rights advocates and leaders of the opposition.

Look how the big sentiments of Bush's grand speech give way to such small words and weasely action when his administration is put to the test. Certainly, Bush and his aides cannot be expected to handle the thorny issue of Pakistan with sophistication or competence. But his administration's response to events in Pakistan show that Bush was more hat than cattle when he claimed at the start of his second term to be freedom's champion. That speech was mainly an attempt to dress up his mess in Iraq. Now those easily delivered words ring out as a reminder of Bush's proclivity for placing rhetoric above reality.

THIS IS WHAT WATERBOARDING STILL LOOKS LIKE. A year ago I obtained pictures of a once-operational waterboarding device and posted them on my blog. The Drudge Report and other sites linked to them, and my blog was besieged with so much traffic the server shut down. Why? Because at that point, there were few, if any, public photographs of this torture device, then a subject of much public debate. With Michael Mukasey's pending nomination as attorney general scheduled to be voted upon by the Senate judiciary committee, waterboarding has again become a topic of political discourse. (It's hard to believe I just wrote the words "waterboarding" and "topic of political discourse" in the same sentence.)

Mukasey's nomination hit trouble after he declined to pronounce this interrogation technique illegal and he endorsed the Bush administration's view that the president, as commander in chief, can interpret the Constitution to place himself above laws passed by Congress. But that trouble passed on Friday when two Democrats on the committee, Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein, declared they would vote for Mukasey on Tuesday (and did so minutes after Senator Patrick Leahy, the Democratic committee chairman, announced his opposition to Mukasey). This assured the Mukasey nomination would be approved by the judiciary committee.

Now that Schumer and DiFi have angered fellow Democrats, it seems an appropriate time to repost that waterboarding item from a year ago. Here it is:

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As Congress has debated legislation that would set up military tribunals and govern the questioning of suspected terrorists (whom the Bush administration would like to be able to detain indefinitely), at issue has been what interrogation techniques can be employed and whether information obtained during torture can be used against those deemed unlawful enemy combatants. One interrogation practice central to this debate is waterboarding. It's usually described in the media in a matter-of-fact manner. The Washington Post simply referred to waterboarding a few days ago as an interrogation measure that "simulates drowning." But what does waterboarding look like?

Below are photographs taken by Jonah Blank last month at Tuol Sleng Prison in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The prison is now a museum that documents Khymer Rouge atrocities. Blank, an anthropologist and former Senior Editor of US News & World Report, is author of the books Arrow of the Blue-Skinned God and Mullahs on the Mainframe. He is a professorial lecturer at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and has taught at Harvard and Georgetown. He currently is a foreign policy adviser to the Democratic staff in the Senate, but the views expressed here are his own observations.

His photos show one of the actual waterboards used by the Khymer Rouge. Here's the first:

Here's another view:

How were they used? Here's a painting by a former prisoner that shows the waterboard in action:

In an email to me, Blank explained the significance of the photos. He wrote:

The crux of the issue before Congress can be boiled down to a simple question: Is waterboarding torture? Anybody who considers this practice to be "torture lite" or merely a "tough technique" might want to take a trip to Phnom Penh. The Khymer Rouge were adept at torture, and there was nothing "lite" about their methods. Incidentally, the waterboard in these photo wasn't merely one among many torture devices highlighted at the prison museum. It was one of only two devices singled out for highlighting (the other was another form of water-torture--a tank that could be filled with water or other liquids; I have photos of that too.) There was an outdoor device as well, one the Khymer Rouge didn't have to construct: chin-up bars. (The prison where the museum is located had been a school before the Khymer Rouge took over). These bars were used for "stress positions"-- another practice employed under current US guidelines. At the Khymer Rouge prison, there is a tank of water next to the bars. It was used to revive prisoners for more torture when they passed out after being placed in stress positions.

These photos are important because most of us have never seen an actual, real-life waterboard. The press typically describes it in the most anodyne ways: a device meant to "simulate drowning" or to "make the prisoner believe he might drown." But the Khymer Rouge were no jokesters, and they didn't tailor their abuse to the dictates of the Geneva Convention. They-- like so many brutal regimes--made waterboarding one of their primary tools for a simple reason: it is one of the most viciously effective forms of torture ever devised.

The legislation backed by Bush and congressional Republicans would explicitly permit the use of evidence obtained through waterboarding and other forms of torture. Khalid Sheikh Muhammad and other top al Qaeda leaders have reportedly been subjected to this technique. They would certainly note--or try to note--that at any trial. But with this legislation, the White House is seeking to declare the use of waterboarding (at least in the past) as a legitimate practice of the US government.

The House of Representatives voted for Bush's bill on Thursday, 253 to 168 (with 34 Democrats siding with the president and only seven Republicans breaking with their party's leader). The Senate is expected to vote on the bill today. Its members should consider Blank's photos and arguments before they, too, go off the deep end.
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Well, it's too late for that in the case of Schumer and DiFi.

And let me add that it was unfortunate that the Mukasey debate became so defined by the waterboarding issue. The larger issue at hand is the Bush administration's (and Mukasey's) view of executive power. By accepting Mukasey, these Democratic senators are tacitly accepting that view.

NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION.... To determine policy in the Bush White House. But here's an all-too relevant passage from Dogs of God: Columbus, the Inquisition, and the Defeat of the Moors, by my friend James Reston Jr.:

When the rack did not produce the desired result, the churchmen turned to the water torture. In this hideous remedy, the prisoner was tied to a ladder that was sloped downward, so that the head was lower than the feet. The head was held fast in position by a metal band, twigs were placed in the nostrils, and ropes winched tightly around his appendages. The mouth was forced open with a metal piece and a cloth placed over the mouth. Then a pitcher of water was brought, and water poured over the cloth. With each swallow, the cloth was drawn deeper into the throat, until in gagging and choking the victim nearly asphyxiated. The terror of suffocation was extreme, and the process was repeated endlessly, bloating the body grotesquely until the victim was ready to confess. If the suspect was still uncooperative, his body was turned over, causing unimaginable pain in the heart and lungs. From the inquisitor's standpoint---for he was there to record every detail---the treatment was easy to administer and left no telltale signs.

First the rack, then waterboarding? Unlike the inquisitors, the Bush administration seems to want to cut right to the chase. How's that for progress?