Senate Intelligence Committee Opposes CIA Lawyer Who Defended Torture Memo

Members of the Senate intelligence committee have requested that President Bush withdraw the nomination of his choice for CIA general counsel, John Rizzo. Human Rights First and four other human rights groups opposed the Rizzo nomination in a letter to the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. As the Washington Post reports today:

During his confirmation hearing in June, Rizzo testified that he did not object to an administration memo in 2002 that deemed legal some extremely harsh interrogation techniques for CIA detainees. According to the memo, a technique was not considered to be torture unless it inflicted pain “equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of body function, or even death.” Rizzo testified that the legal opinion “on the whole was a reasonable one.”