f her six-minute confrontation with students in a Stanford University dorm is any indication, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is ill-prepared for life outside the bubble of the Bush administration.
As recorded on video by student Reyna Garcia, Rice began by incorrectly referring to the 9/11 hijackers as “tyrants.” Then, despite the clear language of recently released memos, she insisted that the excesses at Abu Ghraib were “not policy” and that no one at Guantánamo had been tortured. Next, she mischaracterized the Red Cross conclusions about the Bush administration’s use of “enhanced interrogation techniques,” and went on to deny that waterboarding is torture.
Then, increasingly agitated, Rice took a turn for the worse. Responding to the charge of torture, she said, “The president instructed us that nothing we would do would be outside of our obligation, legal obligations under the convention against torture… I conveyed the authorization of the administration to the agency. And so by definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture.”
For John Dean, former White House counsel to President Richard Nixon, Rice’s remark sounded eerily similar to Nixon’s famous line: “When the President does it, that means that it’s not illegal.” Dean also said that Rice’s words could be construed as meaning she was part of a conspiracy to carry out a program that was illegal.
“She tried to say she didn’t authorize anything, then proceeded to say she did pass orders along to the CIA to engage in torture if it was legal by the standard of the Department of Justice,” Dean said. “This really puts her right in the middle of a common plan, as it’s known in international law, or a conspiracy, as it’s known in American law, and this indeed is a crime.” Specifically, Rice admitted to violating section 2340A (c) of the U.S. Code regarding conspiracy to commit torture.
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