“In the [Assistant Attorney General Jay] Bybee memo [of August 1, 2002], and in three others from May 2005 signed by the OLC’s [Office of Legal Counsel’s] Steven G. Bradbury, the lawyers argue that none of these enhanced interrogation techniques…amount to torture as CIA advocates have attested to them. The reasoning turns on the parsing of some key words. …great weight is accorded to the fact that medical and psychological personnel would be on hand to monitor the administration of each and every enhanced technique. The medical doctors and shrinks would safeguard the process, presumably by spotting the precise moment mere physical or mental pain or suffering is about to graduate to ‘severe,’ thus becoming torture and violating the law. Even past that point, the action might not clear the bar and qualify as torture if the interrogator had not ‘specifically intended’ it as such.” [The 15th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.]
– John Kiriakou with Michael Ruby, The Reluctant Spy, Page 138