G.W. Bush Defaced, 24x30,  Oil on canvas, Sandra Koponen © 2015OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENTGeorge W. Bush, PresidentJan. 20, 2001 - Jan. 20, 2009President Bush presided over the torture administration. He issued a still-secret order authorizing the CIA to establish secret detention facilities overseas and to interrogate detainees. Over the legal and policy objections of State Department officials, Bush also determined that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to suspected Taliban and al Qaeda detainees in U.S. custody, a legal maneuver that set the stage for future torture. Through his subordinates, including the National Security Council Principals Committee, who met in the White House to discuss the use of particular interrogation techniques to be used on particular detainees, he authorized the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” by the CIA and other harsh techniques by the military. Asked about those meetings on national television, Bush affirmed that he knew and approved of them … In his subsequent memoir, Bush acknowledged that he personally approved waterboarding and continued to insist that it and other brutal methods were not torture.**https://www.aclu.org/files/accountability/torturers3.swf

G.W. Bush Defaced, 24x30,  Oil on canvas, Sandra Koponen © 2015

OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT

George W. Bush, President

Jan. 20, 2001 - Jan. 20, 2009

President Bush presided over the torture administration. He issued a still-secret order authorizing the CIA to establish secret detention facilities overseas and to interrogate detainees. Over the legal and policy objections of State Department officials, Bush also determined that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to suspected Taliban and al Qaeda detainees in U.S. custody, a legal maneuver that set the stage for future torture. Through his subordinates, including the National Security Council Principals Committee, who met in the White House to discuss the use of particular interrogation techniques to be used on particular detainees, he authorized the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” by the CIA and other harsh techniques by the military. Asked about those meetings on national television, Bush affirmed that he knew and approved of them … In his subsequent memoir, Bush acknowledged that he personally approved waterboarding and continued to insist that it and other brutal methods were not torture.*

*https://www.aclu.org/files/accountability/torturers3.swf