Torture's Path; The paper trail is long, and it isn't pretty. But it's sure to produce some tough Senate questions for Alberto Gonzales.(nominee for Attorney General of the United States)

Publication: Newsweek

Publication Date: 27-DEC-04

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Byline: Michael Isikoff, Daniel Klaidman and Michael Hirsh

The CIA had a question for the top lawyers in the Bush administration: how far could the agency go in interrogating terror suspects--in particular, Abu Zubaydah, the close-mouthed Qaeda lieutenant who was resisting standard methods? So in July of 2002 the president's chief counsel, Alberto Gonzales, convened his colleagues in his cozy, wood-paneled White House office. One by one, the lawyers went over five or six pressure techniques proposed by the CIA. One such technique, a participant recalls, was "waterboarding" (making a suspect think he might drown). Another, mock burial, was nixed as too harsh. A third, the open-handed slapping of suspects, drew much discussion. The idea was "just to shock someone with the physical impact," one lawyer explained, with "little chance of bone damage or tissue damage." Gonzales and the lawyers also discussed in great detail how to legally justify such methods.

Among those at...

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