The Golden Shield. Interesting piece, which seems to be sourced by one who wants to do damage to Rice and image she has as trying to moderate White House policy on torture, interrogations and detentions. As I have reported, sources have suggested to me that as an aide to a top CIA official in the 2002-2003 time frame, former CIA officer John Kiriakou saw the detailed interagency traffic signing off on interrogation techniques, and took notes and wrote memos for his boss:

Not only in Pakistan, but back at Langley, Kiriakou was in a position to know about important debates inside the CIA, regarding interrogation techniques and other high-level matters.

In the summer of 2002, after returning from a posting as the Counterterrorism Center chief in Pakistan, where he was involved in the questioning of Zubaida, Kiriakou served as the executive assistant to Robert Grenier, then the CIA's Iraq mission manager.

As such, he would have had a window into who in the Principals' meetings signed off on what. And to be rankled by the White House and Congress tendency later to put responsibility for those decisions all on the CIA.

Posted by Laura at April 10, 2008 06:43 AM