"I urge criminal prosecution of these high-level civilians and generals because their conduct broke U.S. federal law, U.S. international law obligations, the Uniform Code of Military Justice and state laws.
I urge these criminal prosecutions because U.S. soldiers have been convicted for doing the bidding of these persons.
As has been recounted in numerous places, the soldiers who did these horrendous things were told that this torture was approved on high - whether in Gitmo, in Iraq, or in Bagram. We know that this torture was done with the aid of many allies in many countries around the world. Even here in Toledo we know this.
These soldiers were rightly convicted for betraying their oaths but it does not end there. Even after leaving prison, they are serving a life sentence because of those convictions.
Those persons who put in place the policy of cruelty should not be allowed to not face a jury of their peers also for the crimes committed. Allowing them not to face a jury of their peers would mean that the life sentences for these awful acts are only to be born by the low-level non-general officers - the Americans from places like Toledo who make up the backbone of our services.
Sir, when the four top uniformed military lawyers asked the head lawyer of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to do a full review of the detainee policy, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Myers blocked that effort at the request of then General Counsel William Haynes. That, I submit, is conspiracy to torture and conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman by General Myers. It is conspiracy to torture by William Haynes.
Sir, when John Yoo wrote those memos where he made up from thin air definitions of torture, that was not legal analysis, that was conspiracy to commit torture.
Sir, when the National Security Principals sat around and approved specific torture techniques that was conspiracy to torture."
Mr. Davis then provides an extensive list of people that "are the persons of interest that should be referred for investigation and criminal prosecution. Some may become defendants, all are witnesses to the conduct that is the crime":
• Former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency George Tenet,
• Former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency Porter Goss,
• Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, General Michael Hayden
• Former Executive Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, A.B. Krongard
• Former Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, John C. Gannon
• Former Director of the National Clandestine Service of the Central Intelligence Agency, Jose A. Rodriguez, Jr.
• Inspector General of the Central Intelligence Agency, John L. Helgerson
• Acting General Counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Rizzo
• Former General Counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency, Scott W. Muller
• Secretary of Homeland Security and former head of the Criminal Division, Department of Justice Michael Chertoff
• Director of National Intelligence John Mike McConnell
I question Gannon's involvement as he left the agency before 9/11. A bio of Gannon can be found below his testimony here.
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