On Capitol Hill, the chair of the Senate Armed Forces Committee Carl Levin has accused top Bush administration officials of sanctioning the use of harsh interrogation techniques used at Guantanamo, Iraq and Afghanistan.
During a hearing on Tuesday, Levin revealed a senior CIA lawyer told Pentagon staff at Guantanamo in 2002 that torture is “basically subject to perception.” CIA attorney Jonathan Freedman said in 2002, “If the detainee dies, you’re doing it wrong.” Levin also revealed military psychologists played a role in devising the military’s interrogation routines.

Sen. Carl Levin: “On October 2, 2002, a week after John Rizzo, the acting CIA general counsel visited Gtimo, a second senior CIA lawyer, Jonathan Freedman, who was chief counsel to the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, went to Guantanamo, attended a meeting of Gitmo staff and discussed a memo proposing the use of aggressive interrogation techniques. That memo had been drafted by a psychologist and psychiatrist from Gitmo who, a couple of weeks earlier, had attended that training given at Fort Bragg by instructors by the SERE school.”

During Tuesday’s hearing, the Pentagon’s former general counsel William Haynes was repeatedly questioned about his role in authorizing interrogation techniques that amount to torture according to many legal and human rights groups. During two hours of testimony, Haynes responded to dozens of questions by saying he could not recall or remember details about the process of approving the interrogation techniques. Democratic Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island blasted Haynes’ role in authorizing torture.

Sen. Jack Reed: “You said the Geneva Convention doesn’t apply, and they honestly ask, 'What does apply?' And the only thing you sent them was: These techniques apply — no conditions, nothing. So don’t go around with this attitude of you’re protecting the integrity of the military. You degraded the integrity of the United States military.’’

The Senate also released documents Tuesday confirming the US military hid the locations of some prisoners from the International Committee of the Red Cross in order to cover up the torture of prisoner.