NOT ONLY FACTS AND INTELLIGENCE...

You may recall the Downing Street Memo in which the head of Britain's version of the CIA said that the Bush regime wasn't being honest about Iraq: "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

The AP follows up on the ABC story about torture being authorized by the White House and finds that (1) it was mainly Cheney behind this and (2) the law was being fitted around the policies:

Cheney, Others OK'd Harsh Interrogations
By LARA JAKES JORDAN and PAMELA HESS – 4 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Bush administration officials from Vice President Dick Cheney on down signed off on using harsh interrogation techniques against suspected terrorists after asking the Justice Department to endorse their legality, The Associated Press has learned.

The officials also took care to insulate President Bush from a series of meetings where CIA interrogation methods, including waterboarding, which simulates drowning, were discussed and ultimately approved.

Between 2002 and 2003, the Justice Department issued several memos from its Office of Legal Counsel that justified using the interrogation tactics, including ones that critics call torture.

"If you looked at the timing of the meetings and the memos you'd see a correlation," the former intelligence official said. Those who attended the dozens of meetings agreed that "there'd need to be a legal opinion on the legality of these tactics" before using them on al-Qaida detainees, the former official said.