Aide: VP's office authorized torture

November 04, 2005

Cheney's Office Implicated in Torture of PrisonersVice President Dick Cheney's office was responsible for issuing the directives which led to U.S. soldiers to abuse prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a NPR interview with Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Wilkerson says he traced a trail of memos authorizing the questionable practices through Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's office directly to Cheney's vice presidential staff.Wilkerson paraphrased the directions given to U.S. soldiers:

"We're not getting enough good intelligence and you need to get that evidence, and, oh, by the way, here's some ways you probably can get it. And even some of the ways that they detailed were not in accordance with the spirit of the Geneva Conventions and the law of war."

In recent weeks, Wilkerson has been very critical of the "cabal" run by Rumsfeld and Cheney in planning the Iraq war.

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