12-18-09, 9:37 am

An outside commission with subpoena power should be empowered to examine the role of the CIA in authorizing and using torture on detainees held by the US government after 9/11, stated Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show Dec. 17.

Levin's pronouncement came on the heels of the conclusion of a year-and-a-half long investigation by his committee into the origins in the Bush administration of the authorization and use of torture and so-called 'harsh interrogation' techniques such as the use of waterboarding.

In the executive summary of the report produced by that investigation, Levin wrote that direct responsibility for the authorization of torture begins at the top. The investigation dug up meetings held in the summer of 2002 between top Pentagon and Bush administration officials who discussed and approved the use of torture techniques against the detainees.

At the same time, officials in the Bush Department of Justice, including Alberto Gonzales, produced twisted interpretations of US and international laws and agreements against torture to give the techniques used against prisoners a legal veneer, the Senate investigation found. Department of Justice lawyers claimed that they were not bound by international agreements on the treatment of prisoners.

The investigation also found that after then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's December 2002 authorization of torture on prisoners at Guantanamo, military specialists were sent there in January 2003 to train military and intelligence interrogators on using torture. Overall, the approval of these interrogation methods created an environment in military controlled prisons that condoned illegal interrogation techniques and treatment of prisoners.

In his statement in the report, Levin rejected the Bush administration's attempts to pass the buck to low-ranking military personnel as 'unconscionable.'

'The message from top officials was clear,' Levin added. '[I]t was acceptable to use degrading and abusive techniques against detainees.'

In his statement attached to the Senate report, Sen. John McCain described the use of these techniques as a violation of Geneva Conventions.

While the Senate investigation appeared to not to include Vice President Dick Cheney in its scope, Cheney told an ABC News reporter earlier in the week that he did in fact authorize and approve of the use of waterboarding. Cheney has insisted that he doesn't believe waterboarding is torture.

In his appearance on The Rachel Maddow Show, Levin rejected Cheney's definitions. 'I know it's a form of torture,' he countered. 'It's been acknowledged as a form of torture, I think, since the Inquisition.'

'Every authority on waterboarding and torture will say that waterboarding constitutes torture,' he added.

The Senate report also hinted that the CIA's interrogation program included torture as authorized by top administration officials.

Levin told Maddow that his committee's finding will be turned over to the next Department of Justice, as the current Attorney General seems uninterested in looking at the evidence 'objectively.'

See the video clip of Levin on The Rachel Maddow Show here: