Democrats go light on lawyer who pushed Bush's 'enhanced interrogation' policies

Nick JulianoPublished: Tuesday June 19, 2007
An architect of the terror-fighting policies enacted by the Bush administration in the wake of 9/11 has told the Senate Intelligence Committee Tuesday he had no regrets about not objecting to the administration's "enhanced interrogation" policies when they were enacted and defended the administration's actions that critics say amount to torture.
John A. Rizzo has been serving as the CIA's acting general counsel without Senate confirmation since August 2004 but is only now undergoing a confirmation hearing. In a break with custom, President Bush nominated career CIA lawyer Rizzo rather than an outside attorney who had served in an oversight role.
In Tuesday's public hearing, Democrats avoided asking Rizzo specific questions about the CIA's secret detention program and treatment policies -- promising to ask harder questions behind closed doors. Because the administration's intelligence activities are laregly classified, members of the Senate intelligence committee were barred from disclosing specifics of programs in public.
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