White House Releases, Disavows (Some) Torture Documents
Are we tired of the subject of torture yet? Just imagine how someone standing hooded in a stress position for this long would feel.
The latest White House move in the ongoing cat-and-mouse game with world opinion, as covered by the Washington Post: Memo on interrogation tactics is disavowed.
President Bush’s aides yesterday disavowed an internal Justice Department opinion that torturing terrorism suspects might be legally defensible, saying it had created the false impression that the government was claiming authority to use interrogation techniques barred by international law.
Responding to pressure from Congress and outrage around the world, officials at the White House and the Justice Department derided the August 2002 legal memo on aggressive interrogation tactics, calling parts of it overbroad and irrelevant and saying it would be rewritten.
In a highly unusual repudiation of its department’s own work, a senior Justice official and two other high-ranking lawyers said that all legal advice rendered by the department’s Office of Legal Counsel on the subject of interrogations will be reviewed.
As part of a public relations offensive, the administration also declassified and released hundreds of pages of internal documents that it said demonstrated that Bush had never authorized torture against detainees from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In doing so, the administration revealed details of the interrogation tactics being used on prisoners, an extraordinary disclosure for an administration that has argued that the release of such information would help the enemy.
The piece also includes a link to the full text of the released documents.
I think I may be getting close to my own saturation point on the whole torture-authorization story. There’s no real question any more (in my mind, at least) that the people at the top thought torture would be a good way to get more information out of detainees, and set out to create the conditions in which it would happen. I’m willing to accept that Bush himself, even if held naked in front of a barking, unmuzzled dog, might stick with the story that no, really, he personally didn’t think he was doing anything illegal or morally wrong. But you know what? I’m getting really tired of having my nation’s strategic judgement and moral stature reduced to a size that can fit between Bush’s ears. The “Hey, I’m stupid. Don’t hold me accountable” defense is getting old.
Someone should tell Rich Lowry, who wrote the following on the National Review Online yesterday, in reference to this poll showing Bush in a dead heat with Kerry on dealing with terrorism:
This Washington Post poll is disturbing today. A year or so ago, Bush critics set out to undermine Bush’s credibilty and to undermine his standing on the war on terror. With help from events outside anyone’s control–especially no WMDs in Iraq–they have now made major progress on both fronts.
What a tool. It would be funny, if it weren’t so pathetic. Actually, it still is pretty funny.
Yes, thank you, Mr. President. I think we all understand the situation now. It wasn’t your fault; you really were doing the very best you could. It’s just that your very best sucks.
