Want to know about George Bush's extraordinary rendition program? Here it is. ( )

the fact that dick cheney and david addington avoided prosecution is one of the big moral failings of the american experiment ( )

Vice President Cheney indicated that the U.S. might have to cross over to "the dark side" in order to fight terrorism effectively. This book provides a good in-depth review of those decisions, their effects and effectiveness. We've all heard and read a lot about the effectivenss of torture in questioning prisoners, and whether the enhanced interrogation techniques that had been used in Iraq and Guantanamo, or in secret renditions to other nations, have been legal or effective. Many of our Nations leaders, especially military men like John McCain and Colin Powell have stated that the enhanced interrogation techniques used in questioning prisoners by the CIA constitute torture, and are both illegal and ineffective. Other in the administration, especially non-military men like Dick Cheney and his staff and President Bush, disagree. Bush has stated our interrogation techniques are "legal".
This book provides the insights on how "legal" became defined within his administration, and just how many, or how few, individuals were involved in those decisions and policies. Many conservative staunch Republicans are described as rebelling and resigning their administration posts in protests to the decisions being made. And there are excellent examples discussed describing the type of information extracted using waterboarding or other techniques, including obtaining pre-Iraq invasion information which supported the decision to go to war. The victim told interviewers what they wanted to hear just to stop the interrogations, and later admitted fabricating information just to get them to stop. John Yoo, David Addington, and Dick Cheney in particular are identified as the key players in this administrations policies, and much of what is presented is disturbing to say the least. I found the book well written, well documented, and worth pondering.

Note:
[March, 2012 update: For an extremely informative and interesting view on the contrasting interrogation techniques used, by an FBI terrorist investigator, look at the September, 2011 book by Ali Soufan, "The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against Al-Qaeda"].


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In depth and detailed account of the use of torture and various legal justifications post-9/11 (up to 2008). Fairly comprehensive but harder to follow than it should have been because of the excessive detail in certain areas and lack of detail in others, but part of that is due to difficulties sourcing information as everything was classified (and the book was written essentially at the same time or shortly after the events). Makes a strong case that the Bush I regime in particular behaved maybe reasonably for the first year or so in 2001/2002 but got worse and worse.

Doesn't include anything about domestic civil liberties (PATRIOT, etc.) which would have been a useful parallel, with the same kind of tortured reasoning applied to justifying unconstitutional actions.

Overall, a good source for interrogation/torture programs of DOD and CIA and the legal justifications applied to them in 2001-2008. ( )

It is interesting to read this book ten years on after two changes of administration. It puts into context the world as we live in under the Trump America. Is it worse than Bush? Is it better to have dirty deeds done in secret or on Twitter? And despite the loud opposition to Guantanamo, how did it manage to last during the eight year Obama government? He had two years of total control in which to correct this injustice. It is remarkable that when I searched Wikipedia for some of the names in this book, many were still in Cuba.

This book was well written, thought provoking, and a great example of investigative journalism. ( )