Please read this one carefully!
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041231/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/justice_torture_memo&e=1WASHINGTON - The Justice Department (news - web sites) is issuing a rewritten legal memo on the meaning of torture, backing away from its own assertions prior to the Iraqi prison abuse scandal that torture had to involve "excruciating and agonizing pain."
The 17-page document states flatly that torture violates U.S. and international law and omits two of the most controversial assertions made in now-disavowed 2002 Justice Department documents: that President Bush (news - web sites), as commander in chief in wartime, had authority superseding U.S. anti-torture laws and that U.S. personnel had several legal defenses against criminal liability in such cases.
"Consideration of the bounds of any such authority would be inconsistent with the president's unequivocal directive that United States personnel not engage in torture," said the memo from Daniel Levin, acting chief of the Office of Legal Counsel, to Deputy Attorney General James Comey.
Critics in Congress and many legal experts say the original documents set up a legal framework that led to abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq (news - web sites), in Afghanistan (news - web sites) and at the U.S. prison camp for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. After the Iraqi prison abuses came to light, the Justice Department in June disavowed its previous legal reasoning and set to work on the replacement document to be released Friday. Is this CYA because they see something coming down? Or is it rebellion from within the DOJ against the White House and the Pentagon?
There is so much quarreling in DC right now it's hard to sort it out. BushCo is at the helm, but there are people in the ranks of many agencies who are not happy. Is this a case of breaking through, or just more BushCo maneuvering?
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