That's how former Pakistan president, Pervez Musharraf, described the UK's position during the torture years. This matters in the looming court case of Binyam Mohammed, the British resident tortured by Pakistan in ways he claims were known by the UK government. Then this nugget about the Bush-Cheney torture program:
In her first television interview, Baroness Manningham-Buller goes on to talk candidly about the challenges faced by British intelligence after the events of 9/11 as they worked to protect the UK from terrorist attacks. When asked if she was aware the Americans had been using "enhanced interrogation techniques" she said: "Not for a quite a long time after they started using them. They chose to conceal it from the allies and indeed from their own citizens."
An FBI employee sent to observe interrogations at Guantanamo said a TV show had provided inspiration for some of the methods used. Jim Clemente, of the FBI's behavioural analysis unit, said one officer told him: "She actually had watched the television show 24 to get ideas on interrogation methods that they would then utilise at Guantanamo. "It was outrageous, unbelievable that someone would do something that stupid."
Not unbelievable, given the clear pro-torture and pro-24 forces in the White House, who celebrated, endorsed the show, and hosted its creators:
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff … praised the show’s depiction of the war on terrorism as “trying to make the best choice with a series of bad options.” He went on, “Frankly, it reflects real life.” Chertoff, who is a devoted viewer of “24,” subsequently began an e-mail correspondence with Gordon, and the two have since socialized in Los Angeles. “It’s been very heady,” Gordon said of Washington’s enthusiasm for the show. Roger Director, Surnow’s friend, joked that the conservative writers at “24” have become “like a Hollywood television annex to the White House. It’s like an auxiliary wing.”
The same day as the Heritage Foundation event, a private luncheon was held in the Wardrobe Room of the White House for Surnow and several others from the show. (The event was not publicized.) Among the attendees were Karl Rove, the deputy chief of staff; Tony Snow, the White House spokesman; Mary Cheney, the Vice-President’s daughter; and Lynn Cheney, the Vice-President’s wife, who, Surnow said, is “an extreme ‘24’ fan.” After the meal, Surnow recalled, he and his colleagues spent more than an hour visiting with Rove in his office.
The fish rotted from the head. It still stinks to heaven.
The Dish 