The President Knew

That's what Josh Marshall says after analysis regarding the Iraqi prison torture that the military's Carbone insisted did not make it as far as senior positions in the Bush administration:

Okay, I think the wheels are now officially off this car. The Baltimore Sun quotes Colin Powell as saying that "we kept the president informed of the concerns that were raised by the ICRC and other international organizations as part of my regular briefings of the president, and advised him that we had to follow these issues, and when we got notes sent to us or reports sent to us ... we had to respond to them, and the president certainly made it clear that that’s what he expected us to do."

Powell further said that he, Rice and Rumsfeld kept Bush “fully informed of the concerns that were being expressed, not in specific details, but in general terms.”

Not only does that contradict what the White House and the president have said. It contradicts the testimony of one of Don Rumsfeld's principal deputies from only yesterday.

When asked by Sen. John Warner whether the ICRC's concerns had made their way to the Secretary's level, Stephen Cambone replied: "No, sir, they did not. Those reports -- those working papers, again, as far as I understand it, were delivered at the command level. They are designed -- the process is designed so that the ICRC can engage with the local commanders and make those kinds of improvements that are necessary in a more collaborative environment than in an adversarial one."