End the torture regime

By A TIMES EDITORIAL
Published October 10, 2007

As the Senate Judiciary Committee prepares to hold confirmation hearings on the nomination of Michael Mukasey to be attorney general, it should keep in mind the way the Justice Department has been used under the last two attorneys general to provide legal cover for torture.

There is no other way to describe the series of abusive practices authorized for use against "high-value" prisoners. According to the New York Times, CIA officials even consulted their Egyptian and Saudi Arabian counterparts for advice - two governments that our nation regularly condemns for its mistreatment of prisoners.

Using techniques such as water-boarding to simulate drowning, leaving prisoners naked in frigid temperatures, and then brushing aside all our laws and treaties that make such practices illegal, have been a preoccupation of the Bush administration. The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel was enlisted to offer legal justification for these acts, no matter how clearly they violated the express terms of law. The few brave insiders who objected quickly became short-timers.

There has been a disturbing level of dishonesty by the Bush administration on the treatment of detainees, and two newly disclosed legal memos out of the Office of Legal Counsel underscore the administration's outrages.

In 2004, after a public outcry, the Justice Department repudiated a legal memo from 2002 that approved a very narrow definition of torture. The memo, drafted by John Yoo, then a deputy at the Office of Legal Counsel, said that torture only occurs when the prisoner experiences pain associated with organ failure or death. After retracting the memo, the department also demonstrated its change of course by declaring on its Web site, "Torture is abhorrent both to American law and values." Yet, after former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales gained the helm, the department was soon formulating a secret policy that would approve what it had claimed to abhor.

In two memos signed by Steven Bradbury, the acting head of the Office of Legal Counsel, the office quietly granted legal cover to the CIA when it sought to combine various harsh interrogation practices, and it determined that none of the CIA's techniques qualifies as "cruel, inhuman or degrading."

In 2005, Congress expressly made the cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of prisoners illegal. But such words were no hindrance to the Bush administration. It simply defined them differently. Bradbury's opinion declared that none of the harsh tactics the CIA used violated the congressional standard.

Apparently if an enemy government were to deprive our soldiers of sleep while denying them proper food while holding them in a frigid cell, naked, and then pouring water over their mouths so they think they're drowning, we wouldn't object since that is not cruel treatment in the administration's book.

The Bush Justice Department has thus far failed to act as an independent force for the rule of law. Particularly under Gonzales' leadership, the department approved blatantly illegal interrogation tactics and granted legal cover to torture. Before being confirmed, Mukasey should agree to dismantle America's torture regime and actively work to bring detainee treatment back into compliance with domestic and international law.

[Last modified October 9, 2007, 22:18:12]