Colin Powell: 'No meeting on torture'

by Mark Silva

The most riveting passage in retired Army Gen. Colin Powell's conversation with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow -- Aries, both, the interviewer noted -- involves what the former secretary of state knew about the interrogation of suspected terrorists on his watch.

There were regular "principal's meetings,'' our former colleague, Jan Crawford Greenberg, of ABC News now, first reported of the Bush administration's consultations on the conduct of interrogation. This included conferences of several of the highest-level members of the Bush administration, including Powell.

"There was no meeting on torture,'' Powell told Maddow of those meetings, and they did not conduct "play by play'' discussions of the techniques being used on some of the highest-value targets,-- at least not in the meetings that he attended.

Powell maintains that it was always his position in those sessions that any interrogation must adhere to the strictures of the Geneva Convention. But he also allows that the full story of this saga remains to be told, and may be revealed some day in "the written record'' of those meetings.

" It is constantly said that the meetings - I had an issue with this - we had meetings on what torture to administer,'' Powell says. "The only meetings I recall were where we talked about what is it we can do with respect to trying to get information from individuals who were in our custody.''

As for that question of "torture,'' he maintained, "It is a legal issue, and I think we have to be very careful and I have to be very careful, because I don't want to be seen as implicating anybody or accusing anybody because I don't have the complete record on this. And that complete record I think in due course will come out.''

See the full conversation, courtesy of MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show:.

RACHEL: On the issue of intelligence, tainted evidence and those things, were you ever present at meetings at which the interrogation of prisoners, like Abu Zubaida, prisoners in those early days where the interrogation was directed where specific interrogations were approved. It has been reported by a couple of different sources that there were principles at meetings, which you would have typically been there where interrogations were almost play by play discussed.

POWELL: They were not play-by-play discussed but there were conversations at senior level as to what could be done with respect to interrogation. I cannot say further because I don't have knowledge of all the meetings that took place or what was discussed at each of those meetings and I think it's going to have to be in the written record of that meeting what will determine whether anything improper took place.

But it is always the case that at least in the State Department's standpoint, we should be consistent with the requirements of the Geneva Convention and that's why this was such a controversial, controversial issue that you have to go in due course I think we all will go to the written record. I'm not sure what memos were signed or not signed. I didn't have access to all of that information.

MADDOW: Water boarding, were those officials committing crimes when they were getting their authorization?

POWELL: You ask me a legal question ... I mean I don't know items would be considered criminal and I will wait for whatever investigation that the government or the Congress intends to pursue with this.

MADDOW: The - there have been two Bush administration officials now who have said explicitly that what we did at Guantanamo was torture. One of them was the State Department general counsel for Guantanamo litigation a man named Vijay - excuse me - Padmanabhan.

POWELL: I don't know him.

MADDOW: Also Susan Crawford, who heads up the military tribunals at Guantanamo. Both have said it was torture. Do you think that they are wrong? Do you feel like you have enough information to know if people were waterboarded, is that torture?

POWELL: I will let those who are making the legal determination of that make that judgment. Susan Crawford has made a statement and she is in a position of authority to make such a statement, has access to all the information. The lawyer you mentioned who is working I guess in the legal advisor's office in the State Department but I don't believe I know him has made statements recently. What's the basis for his statements and what meetings he was in and whether he was in Guantanamo I just don't know.

MADDOW: I guess have to ask that - a broader question about whether or not you have regrets not about what the Bush administration did broadly in the years that you were secretary of state but the decisions that you participated in about interrogation, about torture, about the other things.

POWELL: There was no meeting on torture. It is constantly said that the meetings - I had an issue with this - we had meetings on what torture to administer. What I recall, the meetings I was in, I was not in all the meetings and I was not an author of many of the memos that have been written and some have come out and some have not come out. The only meetings I recall were where we talked about what is it we can do with respect to trying to get information from individuals who were in our custody. And I will just have to wait until the full written record is available and has been examined.

MADDOW: I don't mean to press you on this to the point of discomfort but there is an extent to which there is a legal discussion around this where everybody feels a little constrained by the legal terms whether or not they are a legal professional. There is also the policy implications that you've been so eloquent about in terms of what the implications are of these policies towards the U.S. abroad in a continuing way and you've been very optimistic in thinking that America still has a reservoir of good will around the world that we can call on regardless of these difficulties that we've had around these issues.

If specific interrogation techniques were being approved by people at the political level in the Cabinet. It doesn't - almost the legal niceties of it almost become less important.

POWELL: I don't know where these things were being approved at a political level.

MADDOW: Was there a principles meeting to discuss interrogation techniques?

POWELL: It does not mean it was approved, anything was approved at a meeting.

MADDOW: OK.

POWELL: It depends on did the meeting end up in a conclusion or was it just a briefing that then went to others to make a final decision on and to document. And so it is a legal issue and I think we have to be very careful and I have to be very careful because I don't want to be seen as implicating anybody or accusing anybody because I don't have the complete record on this. And that complete record I think in due course will come out.