Sounds to me like it's letting Bush and Cheney off the hook with the statement-

The techniques they used were all authorized, but the manner in which they applied them was overly aggressive and too persistent.

Sounds like she's blame the little guy down the chain of command.

Here is the vexing deal for the outgoing Administration. Law and the equitable distribution of law is the justification to address lawlessness. Even if a person is suspected for heinous even mass murder and carnage that does not justify lawlessness in response otherwise you have lawlessness in all regards and simply rule by might.

Oh that is what Cheney (and Bush) have held, they have the might and thus they are right.

The technicalities are actually human rights, which is established to limit the might is right ability by the government. Torture is by definition is both an act of lawlessness since it is causing physical and possibly permanent harm (which is the ultimate definition of murder and carnage) and it produces invalid information by definition since in our system we cannot bear self incrimination without a willingness.

No matter what the Bush and Cheney Administration try to say in justification for their lawlessness it cannot be maintaining law and order or protecting the Constitution which by definition was a limit on the power of might.

Ask yourself what really was the desperation of the Bush/Cheney regime? A deep reading of the partnership with Saudi Oil, Saudi royalty and all things oil and Wall Street finance was their desperation American lives (if it was Bush and Cheney would have reacted much differently following Katrina), no it was the stability and foundation of their world.

The attack of 9/11 was brilliant in that bin Laden fingered the pressure point. He and his minions are not actually waging war on the US or the West except that we are part of the Oil Addiction that has corrupted and held hostage their Saudi/Muslim homeland. The money, the finance world the oil based economy supports and has warped their world. Essentially since 9/11 the US economy has been declining, now in a free fall. It also has emptied US treasury in fighting to wars of insurgency that are nothing but losing propositions. The indigenous populations of Iraq and Afghanistan are the natural pawns for this long strategy to wage an economic war against an economic empire and power structure.

This war has exposed all forms of ruling hypocrisy by the West, including not being able to live up to the Geneva Conventions. We need to suck it up and prosecute all....and re think all our strategies.

Just as a note of reference, when we caught the Japanese officers who water-boarded our boys in WWII, we hung 'em. That was the Good War.

Now, the US has adopted the tactics the Gestapo used, that the Japanese used, on us. Time now for some toothless old Democrat to write a stern letter and act all outraged, before doing nothing about it.

America, land of the free, home of the torture.

You know, if he never said that I wouldn't have believed that forcing people to stand naked without sleep for days and weeks and months at a time was actually torture.

Its like killing someone by dropping a ton of flowers on them. Hey its not really murder- its flowers for god's sake!

Yep, they tortured people. Actually discussed the methods to be employed in the Oval Office. This is not news. Bush Administration lackeys would pose the question as follows: Do you love your country enough to torture people? Are you willing to commit horrible crimes, uh, that is, to vigorously question some apparently bad people who may have information?
See, it's only a matter of how loyal you are to your country. The more you love it, the greater the crimes you are willing to commit. If you have a problem with that reasoning, then you never had to bear the heavy burden of protecting our citizens. If you don't believe me, ask the editors at Newsweek. They understand.

This woman needs to sit down at a hearing before Congress immediately - skip the request go straight to subpoena. Ask her how she was able to evaluate the "techniques" and "manner" of treatment.

What were her eyes looking at when she made that evaluation. Where is whatever she was looking at now. How many other detainees had records of treatment that she examined, and agin same questions, what did the records consist of, where are those records now and finally who else has seen or can access these records.

This woman's admission is radioactive.