New Torture Memo

by soccerdad

The justice Department released a new memo on torture yesterday that appears to read significantly different than previous memos.

Before addressing this new memo it will be instructive to read an article in yesterday's NYTimes by Andrew Rosenthal Legal Breach: The Government's Attorneys and Abu Ghraib Mr Rosenthal does an excellent job of laying out the role of Government lawyers in promoting torture by writing the well known "torture memos". I recommend the article and will try to hit the high points.

He notes that the role of the government lawyers has been turned on its head. Instead of providing honest advice, they now try and figure out how to either make an illegal activity seem ok or minimize the danger of being held accountable.

He notes:

When Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved the initial list of interrogation methods for Guantánamo Bay in late 2002 - methods that clearly violated the Geneva Conventions and anti-torture statutes - there were no protests from the legal counsels for the secretary of defense, the attorney general, the president, the Central Intelligence Agency or any of the civilian secretaries of the armed services

Jess Bravin of the WSJ who broke the story about the original torture memos had an article in the WSJ which is quoted at Intel Dump.

The 17-page memorandum issued by the Office of Legal Counsel, the Justice Department unit that provides definitive legal guidance for the executive branch, replaces a 50-page opinion issued in August 2002 that offered a legal framework to justify inflicting agony on prisoners and contended President Bush could set aside laws and treaties prohibiting torture.

Mr Bravin notes that new memo clearly states that previous memos were wrong in some very important ways but the memo concludes that even under its wider definition of torture, none of the interrogation methods previously approved by the Justice Department would be illegal.

Well isn't that handy.

Mr Bravin also notes:

The new document comes less than a week before Mr. Gonzales, nominated to succeed John Ashcroft as attorney general, faces a Senate confirmation hearing where Judiciary Committee members plan to grill him on his role in formulating interrogation policies. The White House declined to comment on the new memo

Another interesting facet of this whole messwas brought up at UnFairWitness. There had been a controversy concerning JAG lawyers and their being blocked from the prisons. It seems they may not agree with the governments "self-exonoration".

The obvious question that has been asked by many is that given that you have the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture why were the original torture memos even necessary? The equally obvious answer was that the original memos were clearly meant to justify the actions at Gitmo and AG and thereby provide cover for the administration. There is additional circumstantial evidence that the Bush adminstration felt that these laws against tortrue were "quaint" and they did not want to abide by them.

In 2002 the Bush Administration tried to block UN plans to reinforce the UN's Convention Against Torture. The point of contention was a protocol that would have allowed inspections of detention centers. My first thought would be that they didn't want anyone going to Gitmo to examine conditions there. One could argue that Bush's strong disdain for the ICC was, in part, due to making sure his people were safe from prosecution. Of course there were other substantive issues.

I must admit to being confused as to what the intent of the most recent memo is. It does exonorate themselves saying that even though the original memos were wrong, no one broke any law. They may also argue that the most recent memo is just a continuation of the review process that was started in 2002. Being cynical like many others I expect that its release 1 week before the confirmation hearings of Gonzales was no accident. But aren't you still left with the previous memos, one of which was written by Gonzales, that were substantively wrong and therefore calls into question his competence? Of course it also seems he can't perform a relatively simple vetting of a nominee's background.