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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (90429)	12/13/2004 10:24:54 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793797

This memos will be brought up in the Attorney General conformation hearings. Torture policy still on the way Intel Dump blog By Phillip Carter Jess Bravin reports in Monday's Wall Street Journal (subscription required) that the executive branch has been working somewhat less than expeditiously to produce new policy guidance after the airing and repudiation of its "torture memos" this summer. In a June 2004 press conference, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales went so far as to disown the memoranda, and explicitly say they would be revised and reissued. It now appears that this has not happened, although it's not clear to what extent the old flawed guidance remains in effect. Six months later, that process remains unresolved, leaving the Defense Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and other agencies without definitive legal guidance for interrogations in the war on terrorism. Friday, a senior Justice Department official said the project "hasn't been abandoned" but simply delayed because of the "press of business" in other counterterrorism efforts. The official said Deputy Attorney General James Comey wanted it finished by year end, and the department expects to publicly release the document. Drafts have been circulating since July at several agencies, including the CIA, Pentagon and State Department. Recent versions, the senior Justice official said, have examined "what is torture, what does it mean, what are useful sources for interpreting the statutory language, but it won't go into the president's ability to order torture if he wanted to." Several officials said they doubt a revised Justice Department opinion ever will emerge. "There's a lot of water between now and then," an administration official said. Some officials don't want to commit a definitive policy to paper, while others see no need to bring up the subject since congressional and public interest in it is flagging, people familiar with the discussions say. "The question is: Why do people have to write opinions about how far you can go?" said one official. To be precise, here's what White House counsel Gonzales said in June 2004 regarding the continued viability and validity of the torture memos: These are tough issues, and some of the conclusions by the lawyers you may find controversial. These opinions set forth a broad legal framework in which the President and his team considered and ultimately adopted more narrowly tailored policies. Now, to the extent that some of these documents, in the context of interrogations, explored broad legal theories, including legal theories about the scope of the President's power as Commander-in-Chief, some of their discussion, quite frankly, is irrelevant and unnecessary to support any action taken by the President. The administration has made clear before, and I will reemphasize today that the President has not authorized, ordered or directed in any way any activity that would transgress the standards of the torture conventions or the torture statute, or other applicable laws. Unnecessary, over-broad discussions in some of these memos that address abstract legal theories, or discussions subject to misinterpretation, but not relied upon by decision-makers are under review, and may be replaced, if appropriate, with more concrete guidance addressing only those issues necessary for the legal analysis of actual practices. But I must emphasize that the analysis underpinning the President's decisions stands and are not being reviewed. So... the sweeping assertions of executive power in these documents are incorrect. But according to Mr. Gonzales, the analysis of torture is correct. I'm not sure whether this remains in force now; there's been a lot of political activity on this issue since June. Nonetheless, it seems like a good question for the Senate to ask Mr. Gonzales in his confirmation hearings. Setting aside for a moment how we got to a precarious position in Guantanamo and at Abu Ghraib, what did Mr. Gonzales do to fix that legal situation once we were there?