Troutfishing takes the torture story to another shocking level:

The meetings described by ABC, and other National Security Council meetings on torture, directly involved George W. Bush who, as NSC head, signs off on major NSC decisions and policy formulations. Such as on torture. Bush wasn't "insulated": the use of that word is absurd and deceptive. Bush signed off on waterboarding.

George W. Bush has just admitted, to ABC, that he "approved" of the National Security Council "Principals" meetings with mssrs. Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Tenet, Ashcroft and Powell in attendance, at which highly specific details on torture were discussed. Last Friday, ABC released details of an exclusive interview with ABC reporters in which George W. Bush stated that he knew of an "approved" those meetings. That means that Bush, who is the head and top decision making authority of the National Security Council, signed off on waterboarding and other forms of torture prohibited by the Geneva Conventions.

What we need to know is if Bush also signed off on, as NSC head, the sex-torture methods, including the rape of children, shown in the evidence that emerged from Abu Ghraib (not all public but which has been seen by some members of Congress), and which has been tied to a secret program initiated by Don Rumsfeld and Stephen Cambone.

George Tenet was unwilling to implement even waterboarding without direct presidential orders, which he eventually got via Bush signing off and then delegating authority to Condi Rice who then instructed Tenet - "It's Your Baby. Go Do it."

We know Bush gave the green light to waterboarding. But the bar has been moved much, much farther...

How were the off-the-chart sadistic methods of "Copper Green", described in a 2004 New Yorker story by Seymour Hersh, possibly implemented with Bush signing off as NSC head given that those methods were CLEARLY war crimes and sex crimes which, in the US, might well be punished by life sentences in prison? How could Don Rumsfeld and Richard Cambone possibly have set up "Copper Green" without direct presidential authorization through the NSC?