Torturer in Chief?

I'd missed it until now, but Elise's post below links to the story of Khaled el-Masri, a German car salesman who was mistakenly kidnapped by the U.S., held for five months in an Afghan prison, apparently tortured, and then released when American officials realized that though "his name was similar to a Qaeda suspect on an international watch list of possible terrorist operatives," he wasn't actually a terrorist. It's a startling, disgusting story; go read it.

For my money, though, what's most awful about Masri's ordeal is that then-National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice intervened directly to have him freed. Not that freeing an innocent man is bad, but "Ms. Rice's involvement suggests that the White House may have played a more hands-on role than was previously known. The officials who discussed the matter on Friday suggested that she had intervened as needed, but would not describe the extent to which national security officials at the White House were in charge." If she was so closely engaged in the release, someone's likely to be closely engaged in other cases of "extraordinary rendition." Who? Is the president directly authorizing the torture of individual terror suspects? Where's my international human-rights law casebook when I need it?