[Infowarrior] - Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations

[Richard Forno]

Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations
By SCOTT SHANE, DAVID JOHNSTON and JAMES RISEN

WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 ‹ When the Justice Department publicly declared torture
³abhorrent² in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration
appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential
authority to order brutal interrogations.

But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales¹s arrival as attorney general in February
2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It
was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an
expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by
the Central Intelligence Agency.

The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit
authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful
physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated
drowning and frigid temperatures.

Mr. Gonzales approved the legal memorandum on ³combined effects² over the
objections of James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general, who was leaving
his job after bruising clashes with the White House. Disagreeing with what
he viewed as the opinion¹s overreaching legal reasoning, Mr. Comey told
colleagues at the department that they would all be ³ashamed² when the world
eventually learned of it.

Later that year, as Congress moved toward outlawing ³cruel, inhuman and
degrading² treatment, the Justice Department issued another secret opinion,
one most lawmakers did not know existed, current and former officials said.
The Justice Department document declared that none of the C.I.A.
interrogation methods violated that standard.

The classified opinions, never previously disclosed, are a hidden legacy of
President Bush¹s second term and Mr. Gonzales¹s tenure at the Justice
Department, where he moved quickly to align it with the White House after a
2004 rebellion by staff lawyers that had thrown policies on surveillance and
detention into turmoil.

Congress and the Supreme Court have intervened repeatedly in the last two
years to impose limits on interrogations, and the administration has
responded as a policy matter by dropping the most extreme techniques. But
the 2005 Justice Department opinions remain in effect, and their legal
conclusions have been confirmed by several more recent memorandums,
officials said. They show how the White House has succeeded in preserving
the broadest possible legal latitude for harsh tactics.

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