Classified documents reveal UK's role in abuse of its own citizens.

A number of highly classified documents, disclosed during high court proceedings, appear to show that the British government colluded in the torture of British citizens. And that the British government had decided that British prisoners being flown to Guantanamo Bay was its "preferred option".

Among the most damning documents are a series of interrogation reports from MI5 officers that betray their disregard for the suffering of a British resident whom they were questioning at a US airbase in Afghanistan. The documents also show that the officers were content to see the mistreatment continue.

One of the most startling documents is chapter 32 of MI6's general procedural manual, entitled "Detainees and Detention Operations", which advises officers that among the "particular sensitivities" they need to consider before becoming directly involved in an operation to detain a terrorism suspect is the question of whether "detention, rather than killing, is the objective of the operation".

Other disclosed documents show how:

• The Foreign Office decided in January 2002 that the transfer of British citizens from Afghanistan to Guantánamo was its "preferred option".

• Jack Straw asked for that rendition to be delayed until MI5 had been able to interrogate those citizens.

• Downing Street was said to have overruled FO attempts to provide a British citizen detained in Zambia with consular support in an attempt to prevent his return to the UK, with the result that he too was "rendered" to Guantánamo.

Blair's reputation will finally be shot be pieces when the extent to which the British government acquiesced in the treatment handed out to it's citizens is revealed, I suspect.

What is undeniable at the moment is the government's almost casual indifference to the fact that it was taking part in criminal activity:

At this time, the fact that "rendition" – abducting an individual and moving them against their will from one country to another – was illegal appears not to have been a concern. A document disclosed by the Foreign Office, dated 10 January 2002 and entitled Afghanistan UK Detainees, expresses the government's "preferred options". It states: "Transfer of United Kingdom nationals held by US forces in Afghanistan to a United States base in Guantánamo is the best way to meet our counter-terrorism objectives, to ensure they are securely held." The "only alternative", the document adds, would be to place these individuals in the custody of British forces in Afghanistan, or to return them to the UK.

At around the same time Jack Straw, then foreign secretary, was sending a telegram to several British diplomatic missions around the world in which he signalled his agreement with this policy, but made clear that he did not wish to see the British nationals moved from Afghanistan before they could be interrogated.

"A specialist team is currently in Afghanistan seeking to interview any detainees with a UK connection to obtain information on their terrorist activities and connections," Straw wrote.

"We therefore hope that all those detainees they wish to interview will remain in Afghanistan and will not be among the first groups to be transferred to Guantánamo. A week's delay should suffice. UK nationals should be transferred as soon as possible thereafter."

The notion that one is innocent until proven guilty was clearly dispensed with as Blair made a priority out of making sure that there was not a sliver of light between his administration and that of George W. Bush.

So far just 900 papers have been disclosed, and these have included batches of press cuttings and copies of government reports that were published several years ago. However, a number of highly revealing documents are among the released papers, as well as fragments of heavily censored emails, memos and policy documents.

Some are difficult to decipher, but together they paint a picture of a government that was determined not only to stand shoulder to shoulder with the United States as it embarked upon its programme of "extraordinary rendition" and torture of terrorism suspects in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, but to actively participate in that programme.

The extent to which Blair's government participated in illegal torture activities will eventually trickle out. Cameron will do his best to limit this, especially as he is anxious to preserve the UK's intelligence links with the US, but one gets the feeling that the people who were tortured are determined to have their story told and there are strong indications that the courts are inclined to agree with them.

Today the government failed in an attempt to bring a temporary halt to the proceedings that have resulted in the disclosure of the documents. Its lawyers argued that the case should be delayed while attempts were made to mediate with the six men, in the hope that their claims could be withdrawn in advance of the judicial inquiry. Lawyers for the former Guantánamo inmates said it was far from certain that mediation would succeed, and insisted the disclosure process continue.

Cameron appears determined to try to buy the silence of these men before the inquiry starts, but I don't get the feeling that these guys are up for sale.

They want the truth to come out. Cameron appears to want an inquiry which doesn't put any pressure on our relationship with the United States. But, as it was the United States, in collusion it appears with Blair's government, who were doing the torturing, I can't see how Cameron can have an honest inquiry and avoid embarrassing our American ally.

Click here for full article.

Tags: Omar Deghayes, Binyam Mohamed, Martin Mubanga, Guantanamo Bay, torture, rendition, Blair, Bush, war on terror

David Brooks Defends Liz Cheney: Liberals Called Dick Cheney Mean Names Too.

David Brooks compares Liz Cheney's attack on lawyers defending suspected terrorists to the names which were hurled at her father when he was Vice President and he asks that we consider this part of "the emotional content".

It's pointed out to him that these lawyers were not running for national office, where such attacks are to be expected, they were simply doing their jobs. And, whilst I was utterly against Dick Cheney's policies and his world view, I don't think anyone ever accused him of possibly sharing al Qaeda's values, which is exactly the implication his daughter heaped upon those lawyers.

Where Brooks imagines there is any comparison between the two is quite baffling to me.

He also claimed this:

I mean, it's just part of a long range of corrosive language. And, to be fair to Liz Cheney, if you Google Taliban and Liz Cheney, millions of people have called her a member of the Taliban and made similar charges.

I Googled it. I could find no evidence to support this claim. Try it and see how you get on.

Tags: Liz Cheney, David Brooks, al Qaeda 7, Guantanamo 9

Thiessen Rushes to Defend Liz Cheney.

With a large amount of Republicans joining in the condemnation of Liz Cheney and William Kristol's disgraceful McCarthyite advert, it falls to Marc Thiessen and Fox News to attempt to defend the indefensible.

KILMEADE: First off, Marc, do you think -- do you think it's wrong to defend criminals? If you're a defense lawyer for a bad guy, whether it's Sammy the Bull or John Gotti, does that make you bad? Is that what they're doing?

THIESSEN: No, but they - I mean, well, first of all, what these people did, most of them, was not defend people who were in the criminal justice system. The sixth amendment says that if you're accused of a crime, you get to have legal representation. What these people were doing, most of them, was trying to spring terrorists out of Guantanamo who were held under the laws of war. Send them back out to the battlefield where they - where we have evidence they've killed Americans since. And one of these lawyers, Jennifer Daskal, has actually said even if we know that they will go out and kill Americans, we should still release them.

Again, Thiessen - like Liz Cheney - refuses to even acknowledge the presumption of innocence, which is a cornerstone of the American justice system. As far as he is concerned these men were battleground detainees who should never have had any trial whatsoever.

They really are fighting for the kind of world-view expressed by Dick Cheney shortly after 9-11.

Not long after the Twin Towers fell, Dick Cheney declared the death of more than two centuries of American tradition. "It will be necessary for us to be a nation of men, and not laws," he said.

The then vice-president did his best to follow through by riding roughshod over the constitution and international laws by promoting torture, indefinite detention without trial and support for secretive military tribunals in which defendants were stripped of many of their rights.

I am stunned that after so many of the people held at Guantanamo Bay have had to be released due to a lack of evidence that there can still be people making this argument.

But that is essentially the argument that Cheney and Thiesen are still making. Anyone accused of terrorism is a terrorist and it therefore follows that anyone who defends such a person is "trying to spring terrorists from Guantanamo."

It's about as un-American a mindset as it is possible to imagine, it certainly rips up many of the laws and values which I would argue represent America's greatest strengths; and yet the people who espouse these notions consider themselves to be great patriots and, indeed, question the patriotism of anyone who disagrees with them.

Even the man who taught Liz Cheney the law is expressing surprise at her views:

“There’s something truly bizarre about this,” said Richard A. Epstein, a University of Chicago law professor and a revered figure among many members of the society. “Liz Cheney is a former student of mine — I don’t know what moves her on this thing,” he said.

But, maybe she is simply embracing her father's belief that this is a time for the US to be "a nation of men, and not laws".

I am pleased that so many Republicans also recognise this odious argument as the dangerous rubbish which it is.

Professor Epstein, however, said he found it “appalling” to see people equating work on detainee cases with a dearth of patriotism. He was a co-author of a brief in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the Supreme Court case argued by Neal Katyal, now the principal deputy solicitor general and a lawyer under scrutiny from Ms. Cheney’s group. The court ruled that the Bush administration’s initial plans for military commissions to try detainees violated the law.

“You don’t want to give the impression that because you oppose the government on this thing, that means you’re just one of those lefties — which I am not,” he said.

Tags: Liz Cheney, Marc Thiessen, Fox News, Al Qaeda 7, Guantanamo 9

Graham blasts Cheney on 'al Qaeda 7' ad.

I've spoken before about the amount of Republicans who are lining up to condemn Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol's odious advert, so I won't harp on about it again. I will just note that Lindsey Graham has now joined the throng of Republicans speaking out against that dreadful TV ad:

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a member of the Senate Armed Services and Judiciary Committees, told The Cable Tuesday that the Cheney-Kristol ad was inappropriate and unfairly demonized DOJ lawyers for doing a noble public service by defending unpopular suspects.

"I've been a military lawyer for almost 30 years, I represented people as a defense attorney in the military that were charged with some pretty horrific acts, and I gave them my all," said Graham.

"This system of justice that we're so proud of in America requires the unpopular to have an advocate and every time a defense lawyer fights to make the government do their job, that defense lawyer has made us all safer."

Graham pointed out that when Supreme Court Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito were facing Senate confirmation, some attempted to use their client lists against them and it was wrong then too.

"I'm with Kenneth Starr on this one," Graham added, referring to a letter signed by several GOP lawyers, many of whom defended Bush-era detainee policies, condemning the "al Qaeda 7" ad.

"To suggest that the Justice Department should not employ talented lawyers who have advocated on behalf of detainees maligns the patriotism of people who have taken honorable positions on contested questions and demands a uniformity of background and view in government service from which no administration would benefit," read the letter, which was organized by the Brookings Institution's Benjamin Wittes and signed by David Rivkin, Lee Casey, and Philip Zelikow, among others.

Carl Levin has agreed with Graham and also brought up the John Adams analogy.

"They probably would have called President John Adams a terrorist too, because he defended the British soldiers who killed Americans at Bunker Hill," said Levin. "I don't think folks like that will stop at anything to attack the president and Democrats. I don't know if there are any limits to their venom.... I haven't seen any."

Kristol, of course, is refusing to back down and it's hysterical to read his continuing justifications for the piece of McCarthyism he indulged in, even as Cheney now claims that this disgusting advert "doesn't question anybody's loyalty".

It's so typical that Cheney will claim to have been misunderstood while Kristol still insists that he was right. He's been wrong more often than any other commentator I have ever come across, but it's never stopped him in the past and it won't stop him now. No matter how many of his fellow Republicans step up to the plate to condemn him.

Click here for full article.

Tags: Liz Cheney, Bill Kristol, Al Qaeda 7, Guantanamo 9, Keep America Safe

Ken Starr criticizes attack on DOJ lawyers who represented detainees; compares DOJ lawyers to John Adams, Atticus Finch.

It really does say something about how despicable Liz Cheney and William Kristol's attacks on DOJ lawyers were, that conservatives of every hue are lining up to distance themselves from them.

But even as conservatives line up to deride and condemn what Cheney and Kristol have done, I never ever expected this to be so outrageous that even Ken Starr would want to publicly voice his disgust.

But that is how scandalous their action was.

Here, Starr reminds us that John Adams defended British red coats after the Boston massacre, and says that he hopes that this example is taught to children in schools. He further argues that lawyers cannot be afraid to take on unpopular cases, as this is the only way to challenge and hold to account the power of the government.

Cheney and Kristol should be utterly ashamed of what they did; they have certainly gone so far out on a limb that even conservatives like Ken Starr are lining up to condemn them.

But, both Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol have shown their utter shamelessness in the past.

Kristol did so the other day with a column attempting to defend this indefensible McCarthyite advert.

Ken Starr had an answer to Kristol's column:

Ken Starr: Well, I love Bill Kristol, I view him as a friend. But, he is wrong on this one and this is simply not consistent with the great traditions of our country.

Kristol and Cheney will never admit that what they did was simply wrong on every level. And the saddest thing is that they are both so ideologically driven that they simply can't see what the rest of us are so outraged by.

Kristol: If all this hubbub is the price we have to pay for the Obama administration adopting more responsible detainee policies that will do a little more to keep America safe, it’s worth it.

Kristol and, I suspect, Cheney, will remain unmoved; but I take some comfort from the fact that many, many, conservatives can see what we are talking about here and that they are willing to stand up and say so.

Tags: Liz Cheney, Bill Kristol, al Qaeda 7, Guantanamo 9, McCarthyism

Countdown: Conservatives Outraged With Liz Cheney's Fear Mongering.

I am really pleased that so many conservatives are coming out of the woodwork to condemn Liz Cheney's outrageous McCarthyite attack on lawyers who defended people suspected of terrorism.

It was one of the most despicable and lowly attacks that I have ever come across. She should be damaged by this, but she won't be. Fox will still have her on to talk in the same way as they continue to invite Bill Kristol to give his "expert" opinions. And that man has been wrong more often than anyone else I can think of.

We are tempted to comment, in these last days before the war, on the U.N., and the French, and the Democrats. But the war itself will clarify who was right and who was wrong about weapons of mass destruction. It will reveal the aspirations of the people of Iraq, and expose the truth about Saddam's regime. It will produce whatever effects it will produce on neighboring countries and on the broader war on terror. We would note now that even the threat of war against Saddam seems to be encouraging stirrings toward political reform in Iran and Saudi Arabia, and a measure of cooperation in the war against al Qaeda from other governments in the region. It turns out it really is better to be respected and feared than to be thought to share, with exquisite sensitivity, other people's pain. History and reality are about to weigh in, and we are inclined simply to let them render their verdicts.

The verdict, once delivered, proved Kristol to be utterly in the wrong. But it didn't affect his career one iota. And Cheney won't be affected by her foray into McCarthyism. She will continue to be invited to spout her venom publicly.

Tags: Liz Cheney, Bill Kristol, Guantanamo Bay, lawyers

Blitzer Apologizes for "Any Confusion Caused" by "Department of Jihad?" Chryon.

I spoke yesterday about my disgust at Wolf Blitzer giving credence to Cheney and Kristol's smearing of lawyers who defended people accused of terrorism.

Apparently many others have complained about this section and Blitzer has offered an apology of sorts:

Blitzer: I want to give our viewers a note. As we were going to a commercial break yesterday around this time we had a graphic on the screen that said "Department of Jihad?" followed by a question mark. Many of you tweeted me, said you found that graphic to be offensive. I agree. It was.

The graphic referenced a video that Liz Cheney's organization Keep America Safe. Their video features those words on screen questioning the loyalty of Justice Department attorneys who have previously worked on behalf of Guantanamo detainees.

CNN had no intention of suggesting that the Justice Department supports terrorism. Lawyers at the Justice Department are patriotic Americans, and we certainly regret any confusion that may have been caused by our graphic.

Blitzer is being disingenuous if he imagines that this was the only offensive thing about that particular segment. That viewers suffered "confusion" over that one graphic. For CNN also flashed the words, "Are Justice Dept. lawyers disloyal?" onscreen.

But what was actually most offensive was the fact that Blitzer debated the charges as if they might possibly be of merit, even though it had been revealed that the Bush administration had also employed lawyers who had previously defended Guantanamo detainees.

Blitzer's failing here was that he allowed this McCarthyism credence. He allowed Liz Cheney to smear the reputation of good men and women "unsupported by proof or based on slight, doubtful, or irrelevant evidence"; which is the dictionary definition of McCarthyism.

What was offensive to many was much, much, more than a graphic. It was as Atrios noted, the fact that "right wing lunatics can still push anything into the puke funnel." And that people like Blitzer will imagine that it merits "intense debate".

UPDATE:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Rachel Maddow reports on the number of conservatives who have found Liz Cheney's accusations as offensive as those of us on the left found them.

Tags: Wolf Blitzer, Liz Cheney, Bill Kristol, McCarthyism

Kristol and Cheney Hunt "The Al Qaeda 7".

This advert is truly revolting.

The ad brands Eric Holder's DOJ the "Department of Jihad" because it employs 9 lawyers who previously represented Guantanamo detainees (including Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal, who successfully represented the Guantanamo-plaintiffs in the 2006 Hamdan case before the U.S. Supreme Court). The ad darkly asks of these lawyers: "whose values do they share?," and labels 7 of those unidentified DOJ lawyers "The Al Qaeda 7."

The premise of the ad is as clear as it insidious: any lawyers representing accused Terrorists are of suspect loyalties and allegiances, are devoted to "jihad," and are sympathetic to, if not part of, Al Qaeda (this profoundly ugly smear campaign began with the always-unhinged Andrew McCarthy in National Review, who branded

• Continue Reading

such lawyers "terrorist sympathizers").

This slander encompasses scores of American military lawyers, who have vigorously, passionately and often successfully defended numerous Guantanamo detainees, including those accused of being Al Qaeda operatives.

It's been produced by a group run by Dick Cheney's daughter and Bill Kristol.

The use of the phrase "The al-Qaeda 7" is clearly intended to imply that there is something criminal or suspicious about what these military lawyers have been doing.

The truth, of course, is that these lawyers have simply been doing their jobs and ensuring, as is supposed to be the American way, that the men they represented got as fair a trial as was possible during the days of the Bush administration. And the men they represented were not "terrorist detainees" as this scurrilous ad claims, they were suspected terrorists. And we all know that the vast majority of these detainees were released due to the lack of evidence against them.

And yet, Kristol and Cheney are now launching this attack on these people, implying that these men and women might possibly share values with al Qaeda.

It's about as irresponsible and reprehensible as any advert could possibly be.

John Adams famously represented the British soldiers who took part in the Boston massacre. Would Cheney and Kristol impugn his loyalty and wonder whose values he shared?

UPDATE:

The seven have now been named by a Justice Department spokesman, who said "politics has overtaken facts and reality" in a tug-of-war over the lawyers' identities.

Although the Fox News article contains some interesting facts:

The Obama Administration is not the first to hire lawyers who represented or advocated for terror suspects.

Pratik Shah, an assistant to the Solicitor General hired by the Bush Administration, was part of the WilmerHale team that put together arguments for the Boumediene v. Bush case.

Trisha Anderson, an adviser in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel who was also hired by the Bush Administration, was previously an attorney at Attorney General Eric Holder's former firm, Covington & Burling, where she helped represent 13 Yemeni detainees.

Varda Hussain, an attorney hired in 2008 with the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, was an associate with the Washington-based firm Venable when she helped represent three Egyptians being held at Guantanamo Bay.

Cheney and Kristol were strangely quiet when George Bush and Cheney's father were hiring people who possibly shared al Qaeda's values....

UPDATE II:



Here this reprehensible woman is interviewed by O'Reilly, and I note that O'Reilly utterly skips over the fact that Liz Cheney's father was also part of an administration which hired people who had previously defended suspected terrorists. O'Reilly decides that the Obama administration must be "clearly worried about this issue" rather than acknowledge that Cheney's claims have been exposed as the partisan rubbish which they are.

She goes on here to state that these 9 people have "previously voluntarily represented terrorists". Again, as I have said before, they were suspected terrorists, a distinction which this awful person finds impossible to make. And she is clearly implying that the voluntary status of their work makes them somehow suspicious, or why would she even bring that up?

Nor does she step back from demanding that the American people have the right to know whether or not lawyers who "used to represent and advocate on behalf of terrorists" are working inside the Justice department.

She is clearly continuing to imply that there is reason to suspect such people.

And she gets away with doing all of this without even being asked by O'Reilly about the Bush administration also hiring people who had previously worked to try to get justice for Guantanamo detainees.

Tags: Liz Cheney, Bill Kristol, al Qaeada 7, Republicans

Government fury as judges attack security services.

The Guardian and other groups have succeeded at the Court of Appeal in having Lord Neuberger restore the critical paragraph of his judgement, which he cut under pressure from the UK government, in which he suggested that MI5 officers could not be trusted to tell the truth in the case of Binyam Mohamed.

Yesterday the Master of the Rolls, Lord Neuberger, agreed to restore the original judgment although he narrowed his criticism to Mr Mohamed's case. In the restored judgment the judge accused officers of having a "dubious record" over the "coercive interrogation" of the former Guantanamo Bay detainee. Lord Neuberger said some officers had been less than frank about what they knew about Mr Mohamed's ill-treatment.

The paragraph in question explains how MI5 had stressed to a parliamentary committee that it "operated in a culture that respected human rights and that coercive techniques were alien to the service's general ethics, methodology and training".

Lord Neuberger's final paragraph says: "Yet in this case that does not seem to have been true: as the evidence shows, some Security Services officials appear to have a dubious record relating to actual involvement, and frankness about any such involvement, with the mistreatment of Mr Mohamed when he was held at the behest of US officials."

The judge then added that while the good faith of the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, was not in doubt, a question mark now hung over some of the legal statements he had made, based on MI5 advice. The judge's published criticism yesterday led to calls for a public inquiry into the security service's role in torture.

This has produced an astonishing reaction from the government.

Within hours Gordon Brown, David Miliband, the foreign secretary, and Alan Johnson, the home secretary, had issued statements backing MI5. In a direct challenge to the court, Johnson said he totally rejected its verdict.

I find it wholly disturbing that leading ministers, and especially the Prime Minister, would seek to criticise a court so publicly. They surely know that our system is built upon a separation of powers which they are now actively seeking to undermine.

Stung by the criticisms, the prime minister said: "We do not torture, and we do not ask others to do so on our behalf. We are clear that officials must not be complicit in mistreatment of detainees."

Johnson, who is responsible for MI5, said: "We totally reject any suggestion that the security services have a systemic problem in respecting human rights. We wholly reject too that they have any interest in suppressing or withholding information from ministers or the courts."

Miliband told Channel 4 News that he disagreed with the verdict: "I do not believe it is right to say that there's an interest or culture within the security services of the suppression of information."

It is now becoming impossible for Labour to avoid some kind of inquiry into the allegation that the British security services, at the very least, turned a blind eye to the torture of Binyam Mohamed. We now have the government in open battle with the courts, with many of us thinking that our courts are hardly radical hothouses, and if they are insisting that MI5 knew about the torture of Binyam Mohamed, then there's a very good chance that they are right. Courts don't go into open battle with a sitting government for no good cause.

Indeed, the very fact that Neuberger cut his original paragraph - under pressure from the government -only highlights the lengths to which they go to avoid rocking the boat.

The judges' verdict sparked widespread calls for a public or judicial inquiry into the handling of Mohamed's case.

"He cares the truth comes out so nobody would go through what he has gone through," said Cori Crider, legal director at Reprieve. "But questions linger. What policies allowed such complicity in torture? How many cases like Binyam's were there? Only a full public inquiry will answer the public's concerns about what has been done in our name."

These questions are not going to go away. Did the UK turn a blind eye - or worse, were we even more complicit - as Binyam Mohamed was tortured?

Gordon Brown, Alan Johnson and David Miliband can all act as if they are outraged that we can even ask such things, but the evidence now demands an inquiry into this.

The case of Binyam Mohamed is extraordinary in every sense of the word. Yesterday, despite huge pressure from the government, the court made clear - although it should be pointed out that it limited it's criticism to Mohamed's case alone - that some security officials "appear to have dubious records when it comes to human rights and coercive techniques".

That's a remarkable thing for a court to say. Indeed, the government's lawyer, Jonathan Sumption QC, thought it so damaging that he sought to have this paragraph removed from the published judgement and the court, under pressure, agreed.

Sumption argued that this was "exceptionally damaging criticism" and, now that it is public, it is hard to disagree with his assessment.

The question is what do we do now?

I find it impossible to believe that this can simply be swept under the carpet as a disagreement between the government and the courts. Someone is right here and someone is wrong. And the question at stake is whether or not the UK facilitated torture.

It demands an answer. And only an inquiry can provide that.

Click here for full article.

Tags: Binyam Mohamed, Guantanamo Bay, torture, war crimes

David Petraeus Refutes Cheney on Torture.

Damn it... Who forgot to send Gen. David Petraeus the memo?

Here, David Gregory seeks to get Petraeus to say that he wishes he still had the ability to torture prisoners, and Petraeus simply refuses to take the bait. Indeed, he appears to insist that people like Dick Cheney are wrong when they repeatedly call for enhanced interrogation techniques to be part of the US arsenal for tackling terrorists.

MR. GREGORY: Can I ask it a slightly different way, if you don't want to talk about what specifically is being learned? Presuming that both U.S. forces and Pakistani officials are doing the interrogation, do you wish you had the interrogation methods that were available to you during the Bush administration to get intelligence from a figure like this?

GEN. PETRAEUS: I have always been on the record, in fact, since 2003, with the concept of living our values. And I think that whenever we have, perhaps, taken expedient measures, they have turned around and bitten us in the backside. We decided early on in the 101st Airborne Division we're just going to--look, we just said we'd decide to obey the Geneva Convention, to, to move forward with that. That has, I think, stood elements in good stead. We have worked very hard over the years, indeed, to ensure that elements like the International Committee of the Red Cross and others who see the conduct of our detainee operations and so forth approve of them. Because in the cases where that is not true, we end up paying a price for it ultimately. Abu Ghraib and other situations like that are nonbiodegradables. They don't go away. The enemy continues to beat you with them like a stick in the Central Command area of responsibility. Beyond that, frankly, we have found that the use of the interrogation methods in the Army Field Manual that was given, the force of law by Congress, that that works. And...

MR. GREGORY: Well...

GEN. PETRAEUS: And that is our experience...

MR. GREGORY: In terms of recruitment threats...

GEN. PETRAEUS: ...in, in the years that we have implemented it.

MR. GREGORY: In terms of recruitment threats, do you consider the prison at Guantanamo Bay in the same way? Do you consider it to be related, or do you think, in other words, should it be closed, or do you believe it was short-sighted to set a deadline certain for its closure?

GEN. PETRAEUS: I've been on the record on that for well over a year as well, saying that it should be closed. But it should be done in a responsible manner. So I'm not seized with the issue that it won't be done by a certain date. In fact, I think it is--it's very prudent to ensure that, as we move forward with that, wherever the remaining detainees are relocated and so forth, whatever jurisdiction is used in legal cases and so forth, is really thought through and done in a very pragmatic and sensible manner.

How long before the same right wingers who idolised Petraeus during the surge, turn on him as someone who doesn't know what he is talking about?

Tags: Abdul Baradar, David Gregory, David Petraeus, Dick Cheney, Guantanamo Bay, Meet the Press, Taliban, Torture

Binyam Mohamed storm widens as Johnson defends MI5 over torture.

The government have come out fighting over the allegations that they knew that Americans were torturing Binyam Mohamed, with the Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, leading the charge by claiming that the media are publishing "groundless accusations" and spreading "ludicrous lies" about the Security Service.

That is at the centre of this week's appeal court ruling, which disclosed CIA-based intelligence showing that MI5 knew that British resident Binyam Mohamed had been subjected to treatment "at the very least cruel, inhuman, and degrading".

The appeal court, presided over by the Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge, also referred to a recent US court case where the judge vindicated Mohamed's claims that "UK authorities" had been "involved in and facilitated the ill-treatment and torture" to which he was subjected while under the control of the US.

The fact that Mohamed was tortured has now been confirmed by two courts, one British and one American, so one is left wondering how Johnson is able to produce such outrage. I imagine it is because allegations have been made that MI5 misled the government.

I note, however, that both Alan Johnson and Jonathan Evans, the director general of MI5, have been careful to use the same delicately balanced phrase:

"We did not practise mistreatment or torture and do not do so now, nor do we collude in torture or encourage others to torture on our behalf."

After Blair recently relied on his "I believe" phrase to utterly change the meaning of an assurance he gave to parliament, I am left wondering what the "get out clause" is in this carefully worded phrase.

Is it that they did not encourage the Americans to torture? Or would they argue that what was being done was not being done on their behalf?

Johnson also stated:

"People can make their arguments and their assertions, but that shouldn't be taken by some commentators in the media as true simply because someone has said it's true."

The problem for Johnson is that the "people" who have made this assertion are two different courts of law, one in the US and now one in the UK. And the person who made the strongest allegation of all was Lord Neuberger, the Master of the Rolls. So this can hardly be swept aside with the phrase "people can make arguments" as if these allegations were something overheard at the water cooler. These were rulings made by the appeal court, they were not speculative assertions as Johnson is now attempting to portray them.

Nick Clegg came closest to nailing the argument in my opinion:

Clegg demanded to know if ministers were told the US had changed its rules on torture after the 9/11 attacks. Either the government knew, or the Security Service was engaged in a cover-up, he claimed. He said: "We must know who in Britain knew the US had changed the rules on torture, when they knew and what action they took. We can only conclude that the Security Services either kept the information to themselves, or they informed ministers who failed to act immediately. "Both of these would suggest at best a cover-up and at worst collusion in torture. Knowledge of Britain's potential complicity in torture looks likely to have gone to the very top of government," he said.

The court stated this:

The court papers disclosed yesterday confirmed that he had endured brutal treatment and made plain that details were passed to MI5. They said: "We regret to have to conclude that the reports provided to the SyS [security services] made clear to anyone reading them that BM was being subjected to the treatment that we have described and the effect upon him of that intentional treatment."

They added: "It could readily be contended to be at the very least cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment by the United States authorities."

So, Clegg for my money, has hit the nail on the head. The court says that the reports "made clear to anyone reading them" that BM was being tortured. And yet the government are claiming that they (a) did not know that he was being tortured and (b) that the security services were not withholding information from them.

One of those statements has to be false as the reports in the security services possession made the torture "clear to anyone reading them".

Click here for full article.

Tags: Binyam Mohamed, MI5, torture, Guantanamo Bay

Lieberman: No facility more humane than Gitmo.

There's so much to nitpick every time Joe Lieberman opens his mouth.

Apparently it would be "a very serious mistake" to try Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in a Federal court, despite the success the Bush administration had when convicting Richard Reid for a very similar offence.

Joe would prefer it if Abdulmutallab was treated as a prisoner of war and held in a military brig. And what better military brig than Guananamo Bay, which Joe appears to think has an unfair reputation.

"You could not find a better, more humane facility for a detention center in the world," Lieberman told ABC's Terry Moran Sunday.

I've said it a thousand times, but why is this right wing hawk allowed to caucus with the Democrats, especially as he won't vote with them on anything which really matters to them?

Tags: abc, c3, Gitmo, Guantanamo Bay, Guantanamo detainees, imprisonment, Joe Lieberman, Terry Moran, Torture

Binyam Mohamed and Sub-Standard Journalism.

The Sub-Standard really is a uniquely horrible little rag, with the latest edition featuring William Kristol questioning whether or not Obama's healthcare reform will prove to be "a Pyrrhic victory", whilst also admitting that he couldn't really remember who Pyrrhus was.

It's rare that someone admits their ignorance of a subject whilst using that very subject to make their point.

However, in one of his links, I found this amongst a complaint that Obama was releasing too many Guantanamo Bay detainees:

But the Obama administration went the opposite direction. Having promised to shutter the detention facility at Guantánamo within one year, the administration has lowered the threshold for detainees eligible to be shipped out and is expediting the procedures for transferring or releasing them.

A total of 31 Guantánamo detainees have been transferred or released since Obama took office.

Among them are several men who acknowledged -receiving training in al Qaeda's notorious "al Farouq" camp. One, Binyam Mohamed, was slated to participate in the next wave of al Qaeda attacks on American soil in 2002.

Regular readers will know how much I have covered the case of Binyam Mohamed and the fact that the British government are going to extraordinary lengths to cover the fact that they might have been complicit in his torture.

The Sub-Standard offer no proof, not even a link, to substantiate their outrageous claim.

But, speaking as someone who has been following his case with interest, I have never heard any proof to substantiate that accusation.

Indeed, Binyam Mohamed was released the moment he entered British soil. That would hardly have happened if there was any proof that he had been, "slated to participate in the next wave of al Qaeda attacks on American soil in 2002."

This right wing lie has been perpetrated before by Liz Cheney:

L. CHENEY: And instead we are releasing terrorists, like Binyam Mohammed, who planned attacks against the United States. He's now been released and lives freely in London.

Let's be clear; Binyam Mohamed has never been found guilty of any terrorist activity by any court of law. And yet these right wing loons continue to besmirch his name, safe in the knowledge that most Americans don't know who the Hell it is that they are talking about.

The British court system, and even American courts, are all acknowledging that a dreadful wrong was done to this man.

But the Sub-Standard continues to print appalling right wing lies. Republicans really do live within a different reality than the rest of us. And it would appear to be one devoid of all facts.

Tags: Weekly Standard, Binyam Mohamed, Bill Kristol

John Bolton Still Touting Pre-9-11 Mentality on Terrorism Trials.

Why is this moronic man still given air time?

Here Bolton argues against trying terrorists at all, saying that he would prefer simply holding them indefinitely. It's a startling reminder that, once any member of the Bush administration mentions "terrorism", then they stop believing in the law altogether.

Trying terrorists for their crimes is apparently displaying "a pre-9-11 mentality". The correct post 9-11 mentality requires locking them up and throwing away the key. Because that mindset has never caused the US any problems.

Tags: John Bolton, Khalid Sheikh Muhammed, terrorism, Guantanamo Bay

Guantánamo torture: UK wants claims of complicity to be heard in secret.

I read stuff like this and find myself shaking my head that this is taking place whilst a Labour government is in power:

The government wants allegations that it was complicit in the torture by the US of Britons held as terrorism suspects to be heard in secret.

In documents seen by the Guardian, lawyers for the government argue it must be allowed to present evidence to the high court with the public excluded, otherwise Britain's relations with other countries and its national security could be damaged. The government also wants its evidence kept secret from defence lawyers.

Lawyers for seven men who are now all back in the UK after the US released them without charge will tomorrow go to the high court in London to fight the government's attempt, which they say is designed to cover the embarrassment of ministers and the security services.

Surely we have the right to know whether or not our own government were engaged in any way in the torture of British citizens? On what George Orwell inspired planet is it possible for a British government to put forward the notion that it is not in our interests to know this?

The claims that the US would cease to share intelligence with us - should this information be made public - was recently dismissed by two senior judges and Miliband, our foreign secretary, is now contesting that ruling.

In the high court, lawyers acting for the seven will urge Mr Justice Silber to reject MI5 and MI6 arguments that they should be able to rely on secret "closed evidence" to make their case.

The government filed a witness statement from the Treasury solicitor David Mackie outlining its defence. In it he explains the damage ministers and their lawyers believe could be caused if information held by the security services is publicly released. Mackie says in his witness statement that informants and the agencies methods would be jeopardised: "Disclosure of the information … would be likely to assist those whose purpose is to injure the security of the UK and whose actions in the past have shown that they are willing to kill innocent civilians."

Mackie then details the damage the government believes could be caused if material held by the Foreign Office is disclosed: "The disclosure of some of the information held by the FCO could prejudice the United Kingdom's bilateral relationships. The effective conduct of international relations depends on maintaining trust and confidence between governments."

So, we are back to the "America won't share info with us if we give their secrets away" argument. The only problem with that argument is that the two senior judges have already told us that the information we are talking about is neither "secret" nor can it be considered "intelligence". This information is simply embarrassing, and it is for that reason that both the US and UK governments are seeking to keep it quiet.

National security is not at risk here. But Tony Blair's image might be severely dented were it to be known that the UK had assisted the US when it came to the torture of some of our own subjects.

Louise Christian, a lawyer who represents Mubanga, said: "We believe the government is not trying to protect national security but trying to protect itself from embarrassment and from being sued for complicity in torture."

Sapna Malik, a solicitor acting for Mohamed said: "That the government is seeking to introduce such unconstitutional and unfair measures by the back door only serves to further raise suspicions about what they are trying to hide."

As always, national security is the blanket cover the government claim to avoid anything becoming public which might make them look bad.

I have every faith that the judges will dismiss this blatant attempt by the government to cover their own tracks.

It really is Orwellian in the extreme that the government can even be making the case which it is making. We are now being told that it is not in our national interest to know if our own government engaged in or assisted in torturing it's own citizens. It simply couldn't get more Big Brother than that.

Click here for full article.

Tags: UK, torture, US, Guantanamo Bay, Martin Mubanga, Moazzam Begg, Miliband

Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo.

I attended a screening last night of “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo”, a new film directed by Polly Nash with Andy Worthington, which sets out in chronological order the story of how the camp at Guantánamo came into being and the stories of some of the people who ended up in that dreadful place.

Answering questions afterwards were Moazzam Begg and Omar Deghayes, two of the people who suffered dreadfully under the Bush administration's foray into complete illegality and war crimes.

The film was intense and powerful, mostly because it did not attempt in any way to emotionalise the story it was laying out before us. Worthington, Clive Stafford Smith and others simply told the story of how the US abandoned Habeas Corpus and found itself in a kind of war with it's own legal system, whilst Begg and Deghayes told the tale of what it was like to be on the receiving end of this historic abberation of justice.

Afterwards, during the question and answer session, Begg and Deghayes spoke of Shaker Aamer, who is still incarcerated in that dreadful place, and of how we need to continue to put pressure on David Miliband to ensure that he is released.

What struck me most during the question and answer session was how funny both men could be, despite the ordeal they had endured. And Begg especially highlighted how, even when one felt that all hope was lost, the occasional word of kindness from an unnamed US guard gave him a belief that one day normality would return and that the nightmare would be over.

Both men are obviously most concerned that the remaining prisoners held in Guantanamo should be tried or released. It's not a novel concept. Indeed, it's the cornerstone of our legal system. We put together evidence against people who we think have committed crimes and we prosecute them.

The way in which the evidence against both these men, and Shaker Aamer, was compiled is shocking to witness. It begins with a presumption of guilt, or at the very least the notion that it is for the accused to prove his innocence rather than for his jailer to make a case against him.

It ends in torture and abuse and with prisoners admitting to meetings with people who were already in US custody at the time when the meeting is alleged to have taken place.

One thing struck me as I watched. This is a film about some of the darkest days in the history of the United States. Days that future generations will look back on with both shame and puzzlement. How, they will ask, was it possible for the Constitution to be set aside in this way? Why did no-one stop them? Where was Congress?

However, even as we speak, this nightmare is still ongoing for more than 200 others.

In one of the most moving sections of the evening, Omar Deghayes spoke of what he felt that he had lost. He didn't lament the loss of his eye, nor did he list the torture he had suffered as the worst thing which happened to him, rather he spoke of missing out on the growth of his young son, of missing those formative years when his son changed from a baby into a young boy.

It's a loss which can never be undone. And it's a price which each person locked up in that dreadful place continues to pay with each day that passes.

Write to someone to put pressure for the release of Shaker Aamer and the closing of this disgraceful chapter in American history. And remember, closing Guantanamo Bay alone will never be enough. Bagram continues to operate. The principle here must be that detention without trial is simply unacceptable. What needs to be restored is the principle of Habeas Corpus. Who could believe that it would be necessary to fight for such a thing at the start of the 21st century?

Write to:

Prime Minister Gordon Brown
10 Downing Street,
London SW1A 2AG

and/or

Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs David Miliband
King Charles Street,
London SW1A 2AA

UPDATE:

For clips and showings please click here.

Tags: Moazzam Begg, Omar Deghayes, Andy Worthington, Shaker Aamer, Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo, Guantanamo Bay, torture, war crimes

Binyam Mohamed: Judges overrule attempt to suppress torture evidence.

The British government told the British courts that, if they published reports into torture committed upon Binyam Mohamed whilst in US custody, the US would cease to share intelligence information with the UK and we would, therefore, be at risk from terrorist attack.

At first, the courts accepted this logic and backed down with great protest.

Yesterday, all of that changed.

In a devastating judgment, two senior judges roundly dismissed the foreign secretary's claims that disclosing the evidence would harm national security and threaten the UK's vital intelligence-sharing arrangements with the US.

In what they described as an "unprecedented" and "exceptional" case, to which the Guardian is a party, they ordered the release of a seven-paragraph summary of what the CIA told British officials – and maybe ministers – about Ethiopian-born Mohamed before he was secretly interrogated by an MI5 officer in 2002.

"The suppression of reports of wrongdoing by officials in circumstances which cannot in any way affect national security is inimical to the rule of law," Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones ruled. "Championing the rule of law, not subordinating it, is the cornerstone of democracy."

The British government are, of course, appealing against this finding; arguing that we will all die, or some other such nonsense, should our American cousins be embarrassed in any way.

But the British court has got it right. What could possibly be more "inimical to the rule of law" than a British court - the very place where law breaking should be punished - bending over backwards to suppress evidence of wrongdoing on account of the fact that it was a government which had committed the offence in question?

Indeed, they even question Miliband's assertion that what they are being asked to suppress is "secret intelligence" at all.

There was a "compelling public interest" to disclose what Miliband wanted to suppress, they said; there was nothing in the seven-paragraph summary that had anything remotely to do with "secret intelligence".

"In our view, as a court in the United Kingdom, a vital public interest requires, for reasons of democratic accountability and the rule of law in the United Kingdom, that a summary of the most important evidence relating to the involvement of the British security services in wrongdoing be placed in the public domain in the United Kingdom."

I have no idea whether or not we will ever get to see this evidence, but the courts have got it right when they state that this deserves to be in the public domain. Courts are not there to hide tales of government wrongdoing, even when the government insisting on secrecy is that of a foreign ally.

The truth might embarrass the United States, but that would be no bad thing if it revealed evidence which shows that an innocent man had been tortured.

Perhaps that embarrassment would go some way to ensuring that such heinous crimes are less likely to be committed in the future.

Click here for full article.

Tags: Binyam Mohamed, Guantanamo Bay, Miliband, Obama, Clinton, Torture, war crimes

Republicans fail to stop Gitmo transfers into US.

Obama has won a partial victory in his attempt to close down the US facility at Guantanamo Bay with the Democrats voting to repel a Republican effort to make transfer of Guantanamo detainees to the US mainland illegal.

Instead, by a 224-193 vote, the House stood by a Democratic plan to allow suspected enemy combatants held at the controversial facility in Cuba to be shipped to U.S. soil — but only to be prosecuted for their suspected crimes.

Democratic leaders had to push hard to win the vote because many Democrats two weeks ago had cast a nonbinding but politically safe vote against any Guantanamo detainee transfers. But several Democrats from swing districts said they saw little political risk on Thursday's vote.

"It's a non-issue. Inside the (Washington) Beltway stuff," said first-term Rep. Dan Maffei, D-N.Y. "People care about jobs, the economy, health care."

One of the things I most loathe about the Republicans is the fact that they play the fear card at almost every opportunity and they also appear to assume that the average American voter has the mental capacity of a four year old.

Why would anyone fear any prisoner being housed in a high security facility from which no-one has ever escaped? And yet that was the card that the Republicans chose to play here.

Rep. Jerry Lewis of California spells out the Republican case:

"Terrorists should not be treated like common criminals in federal court," Lewis said. "These detainees are enemies of the state, and should be treated as such by being held and brought to justice right where they are — in Guantanamo Bay."

I think everything which is wrong about the Republican position is in that statement. Terrorists are common criminals, nothing more. It is giving them far more credit than they are due to refer to them as an army or any actual military unit. And there is certainly no need to make changes to the criminal justice system in order to deal with such people. The system has already shown itself capable of dealing with murderers, rapists and serial killers; it is more than capable of dealing with delusional people who think that they can bring down empires from the caves of Afghanistan.

The Republicans think that they are talking tough, but all I can smell is their fear. What is the point of our system and our values if we are going to trade all of that away simply because we are threatened by a hidden enemy?

Now is surely the time to do the very opposite of what the Republicans propose; now is the time to show that our system and our values work.

And we do that, not by changing the system or housing these people on islands off of Cuba, but by bringing them through the criminal justice system and proving that they are guilty of crimes.

That system has proven itself over hundreds of years, there really is no reason to change all that now. Indeed, to do so compliments the terrorist in a way which they really don't deserve.

So, I am pleased that Obama has won this partial victory, but I am more pleased that the only way he will be allowed to transfer people is if he is prepared to prosecute them for suspected crimes.

This nonsense has gone on for far too long. Obama should prosecute those people he has a case against and he should release those for whom he has no case.

That should not even be a controversial statement. After all, that is the foundation of the entire criminal justice system. And that system has proven itself to be pretty robust over the past couple of hundred years.

Click title for full article.

Tags: Obama, Democrats, Republicans, Guantanamo Bay

How Much More Do We Need To Hear?

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The more one gets to examine the newly released CIA IG report, the more obvious it becomes that the CIA were torturing people without permission, and that this permission was actually granted in retrospect. John Sifton explains why that could prove to be very dangerous for the CIA.

And there are now reports that one of their methods of torture was to literally leave these men lying in their own shit:

But there's another reason they were kept in diapers, at least while in transit, and I suspect at other times as well: forced enemas.

Mr. Kahtani was, for example, forcibly given an enema, officials said, which was used because it was uncomfortable and degrading.

Pentagon spokesmen said the procedure was medically necessary because Mr. Kahtani was dehydrated after an especially difficult interrogation session. Another official, told of the use of the enema, said, however, "I bet they said he was dehydrated," adding that that was the justification whenever an enema was used as a coercive technique, as it had been on several detainees.

And let's not forget, no matter what Cheney or anyone else states, that these men - including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed - were innocent at the time that they were tortured. This is an oft forgotten fact in this discussion. Every single person at Guantanamo Bay - and other US detention facilities - was, under US law, utterly innocent until found guilty by a court of law. And, as Bush refused to ever put them on trial, they were innocent at the time when all of these atrocities were taking place.

That's the fundamental of US law which Bush, Cheney, Yoo and others were attempting to dismantle.

They believed that these men were terrorists and that, therefore, the law no longer applied.

That's why it would be futile to prosecute the people who carried out these atrocities rather than the architects of them. For the underlying principle which fuelled their actions - that the law did not apply to certain people - is what makes what they did so illegal and so dangerous.

And it's why it is imperative, if Obama is to make good on his promise that the US "is a country of laws", that these people face prosecution.

New York Congressman Jerry Nadler, a senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, told the Huffington Post that he believed that President Obama would be breaking the law if he decided to oppose launching investigation into the authorization of torture.

"If they follow the law they have no choice," Nadler said in an interview this past weekend.

The logic, for Nadler, is straightforward. As a signatory of the convention against torture, and as a result of the anti-torture act of 1996, the United States government is obligated to investigate accusations of torture when they occur in its jurisdiction.

The alternative, Nadler said, "would be violating the law. They would be not upholding the law; they would be violating it."

I don't know how much more of this stuff has to come out before the American public - and the Obama administration - finally say, "Enough!", and move to do what is right.

Digby:

If you have followed the torture revelations over the years, you can't help but be just a tad disillusioned by the fact that the mainstream media acts over and over again as if they were born yesterday and each time these stories are validated it's as if it's the first time they've heard it.

We already know they tortured. We know that DOJ bureaucrats illegally approved the torture on Dick Cheney's request and we know that a bunch of unprofessional, untrained interrogators complied and then went beyond even what was approved. We know that innocent people were tortured and we know that prisoners were killed. We've known all this for a long time. The question is not what happened, it's whether anyone will be held accountable for it.

The more we hear, the more dreadful the lack of action against these people becomes.

Related Articles:

Andrew Sullivan: The Evidence Mounts Still Further

The descent of the United States - and of Americans in general - to lower standards of morality and justice than those demanded by Iranians of their regime is a sign of the polity's moral degeneracy.

[...]

This is what Bush and Cheney truly achieved in their tragic response to 9/11: two terribly failed, brutally expensive wars, the revival of sectarian warfare and genocide in the Middle East, the end of America's global moral authority, the empowerment of Iran's and North Korea's dictatorships, and the nightmares of Gitmo and Bagram still haunting the new administration.

But what they did to the culture - how they systematically dismantled core American values like the prohibition on torture and respect for the rule of law - is the worst and most enduring of the legacies.

One political party in this country is now explicitly pro-torture, and wants to restore a torture regime if it regains power. Decent conservatives for the most part simply looked the other way. Unless these cultural forces in defense of violence and torture are defeated - not appeased or excused, but defeated - America will never return the way it once was. Electing a new president was the start and not the end of this. He is flawed, as every president is, but in my view, the scale of the mess he inherited demands some slack. Any new criminal investigation which scapegoats those at the bottom while protecting the guilty men and women who made it happen is a travesty of justice. If it is the end and not the beginning of accountability, it will be worse than nothing.

UPDATE:

What is also being overlooked by a lot of newspaper reporting is that CIA operatives themselves were saying that this programme was illegal, even as they were carrying it out:

The Inspector General’s review was launched by complaints coming from valued senior employees who felt that the Bush Program (as John Yoo has dubbed it) was wrong. One of them actually expresses his worry that those involved will be hauled before the World Court at some point because of [and that’s redacted!] This makes clear that good employees of the agency opposed the Bush Program, were vocal in their opposition, and focused concern on the program’s illegality.

UPDATE II:

The New York Times:

It is possible to sympathize with Mr. Obama’s desire to avoid a politically fraught investigation. But the need to set this nation back under the rule of law is no less urgent than it was when he promised to do so in his campaign.

That will not be accomplished by investigating individual interrogators. It will require a fearless airing of how the orders were issued to those men, and who gave them. Only by making public officials accountable under the law can Americans be confident that future presidents will not feel free to break it the way Mr. Bush did.

That's what's at stake here in a nutshell. And I am pleased that this point is now being made by a major newspaper and not just by people on the blogs.

Tags: Bush, Cheney, Yoo, Bybee, Torture, war crimes, Guantanamo Bay