Bush Knew of and Approved of Torture Discussion by His Staff

President Bush says he knew his top national security advisers discussed and approved specific details about how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, according to an exclusive interview with ABC News Friday.

"Well, we started to connect the dots in order to protect the American people." Bush told ABC News White House correspondent Martha Raddatz. "And yes, I'm aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved."

As first reported by ABC News Wednesday, the most senior Bush administration officials repeatedly discussed and approved specific details of exactly how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the CIA.

The high-level discussions about these "enhanced interrogation techniques" were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed -- down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.

So now we can clearly throw Bush in jail along with the rest of his sick crew.

It does seem striking that a couple of years ago, the media couldn't even contemplate that Bush was involved in authorizing torture-- they thought it was beyond the pale--yet now, Bush basically has admitted it and the media yawns or actively suppresses the info.

This issue, if we have any hope for maintaining a pretense of justice in this country, should not go away.

We should all do our best not to make it go away.

A more extended (and beautifully written) treatment of this same outrage is here.

Froomkin of the WaPo sums up the story here.