Former top CIA lawyer John Rizzo: Bush didn't know about torture In a new memoir, Rizzo alleges the former president was little involved in the CIA's initial embrace of torture

While the embrace of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques (aka torture) remains one of the most controversial aspects of the George W. Bush presidency, a new memoir from former CIA lawyer John Rizzo alleges that on this crucial decision, "The Decider" was one of the last high-ranking officials to know.

According to a report from Steve Coll of the New Yorker, Rizzo writes in his upcoming memoir, "Company Man," that while administration officials such as George Tenet, Condoleezza Rice and Dick Cheney were present at briefings on the CIA's torture sessions, Bush himself was never in attendance. What's more, Rizzo writes that while he was in near constant communication with then-CIA Director George Tenet, he could not recall a single instance of Tenet's communicating a message or directive from Bush.

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“The one senior U.S. Government national security official during this time—from August 2002 through 2003—who I did not believe was knowledgeable about the E.I.T.s [enhanced interrogation techniques] was President Bush himself," Rizzo writes. "He was not present at any of the Principals Committee meetings … and none of the principals at any of the E.I.T. sessions during this period ever alluded to the president knowing anything about them.”

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