Wednesday, June 23, 2004
Memo on Interrogation Tactics Is Disavowed
At several points, formal legal opinion was written for the Administration saying The President is legally able to give illegal orders, including orders to torture, kill and commit other crimes, since he is the Commander In Chief, operating in the interests of National Security. Now, however, many of the institutions where the opinions were generated have renounced the documents and opinions therein.
"Bush's aides yesterday disavowed an internal Justice Department opinion that torturing terrorism suspects might be legally defensible.... derided the August 2002 legal memo... 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."
At several points, formal legal opinion was written for the Administration saying The President is legally able to give illegal orders, including orders to torture, kill and commit other crimes, since he is the Commander In Chief, operating in the interests of National Security. Now, however, many of the institutions where the opinions were generated have renounced the documents and opinions therein.
"Bush's aides yesterday disavowed an internal Justice Department opinion that torturing terrorism suspects might be legally defensible.... derided the August 2002 legal memo... 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."
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