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NBC's Andrea Mitchell filed a brief update on her story yesterday about secret Justice Department memoranda--ones that supposedly contradict public assurances by President George Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that CIA interrogators do not use torture. Now House and Senate committees have demanded to see the wording of the memos. Mitchell spelled out clearly what qualifies as torture: "Any act intentionally inflicting severe pain and suffering, whether physical or mental, to get a confession." She quoted unnamed "critics" in Congress who claim that the memos in question "do permit harsher techniques." Mitchell did not go the whole hog and report claims that torture had actually occurred, only that "the administration's denials cannot be proved."
ABC's Martha Raddatz (subscription required) also had a spook story, about the espionage that led to last month's clandestine Israeli air raid on a facility in Syria that may have contained military materiel from North Korea. Raddatz's blind source--she vaguely called it a "US official"--told her that Israel's inside scoop about Syria was "jaw dropping mostly because it raised questions as to why US intelligence had not picked up on it." Raddatz ended cryptically, observing the lack of strong protests against Israel by North Korea, Syria or the United States, "which suggests that the strike was justified."
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