Rizzo appears to have succeeded in inoculating agency employees from prosecution. But critics, including President Obama, contend that the cost to the country was considerable.
As the controversy escalated, Rizzo worked to contain the damage. Goss said that he ordered the interrogation program halted in late 2005, based largely on Rizzo's advice. A year later, it was Rizzo who helped arrange for the Red Cross to gain access to CIA detainees after their transfer to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Nevertheless, Rizzo paid a price. He had hoped to become the first career lawyer to be named general counsel at the CIA. But he was forced to withdraw after members of the Senate Intelligence Committee made it clear that if they were to hold a vote, Rizzo would lose.
In his confirmation hearing, Rizzo frustrated lawmakers by refusing to disavow the infamous Justice Department memo arguing that torture had to involve physical pain "equivalent in intensity" to organ failure, or even death.
The memo was "an aggressive, expansive reading" of the law, Rizzo said. "But I can't say that I had any specific objections to any specific parts of it."
The man nominated to replace Rizzo, former Justice Department lawyer Stephen W. Preston, was similarly reluctant to denounce the agency's methods during his confirmation hearing last month.
Repeatedly pressed on whether waterboarding constituted torture, Preston replied, "I have not reached that conclusion."
Even so, Preston was confirmed and is expected to move into Rizzo's office on the seventh floor of the CIA headquarters building this week.
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greg.miller@latimes.com
