NEWSWEEK: White House Memo About Interrogation Prompted by CIA Questions

[UpInArms]

NEWSWEEK: White House Memo About Interrogation Prompted by CIA Questions About Top Qaeda Captive Who Turned Uncooperative

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/micro_stories.pl?ACCT=617800&TICK=NEWS&STORY=/www/story/06-13-2004/0002192062&EDATE=Jun+13,+2004

NEW YORK, June 13 /PRNewswire/ -- Last week the White House dismissed news
accounts of an explosive August 2002 brief from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel which has been widely criticized for seeming to flout conventions against torture. The memo, drafted by former OLC lawyer John Yoo, defends most interrogation methods short of severe, intentionally inflicted pain and permanent damage.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20040613/NYSU004 )

Although White House officials said that such legal reasoning was
insignificant and did not reflect the president's orders, Newsweek has learned that Yoo's memo was prompted by CIA questions about what to do with a top Qaeda captive, Abu Zubaydah, who had turned uncooperative. And it was drafted after White House meetings convened by George W. Bush's chief counsel, Alberto Gonzales, along with Defense Department general counsel William Haynes and David Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney's counsel, who discussed specific interrogation techniques, says a source familiar with the discussions.

Among the methods they found acceptable: "water-boarding," or dripping water into a wet cloth over a suspect's face, which can feel like drowning; and threatening to bring in more-brutal interrogators from other nations, reports Senior Editor Michael Hirsh, National Security Correspondent John Barry and Washington Bureau Chief Daniel Klaidman in the June 21 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, June 14). In this report, Newsweek examines the long-running battle over interrogation tactics inside the Bush administration, a struggle that continued right up until the Abu Ghraib scandal broke in April.

...more...

[Eric J in MN]

1. Which memo is which?

Are they saying that John Yoo wrote the memo that any pain less than the pain which would accompany organ-failure is ok?

John Yoo is being funded by the taxpayers of California as a UC Berkely law professor.

[LittleApple81]

2. And he brushes any questions/criticisms aside because he was

just issuing a hypothetical (or something equally ridiculous) legal opinion.
Scum!

[JoFerret]

3. Is he the same fellow always blathering

for the right on Lehrer? If so then he's a real apologist and cheerleader and deserves to get skewered.

[UpInArms]

4. here's an article that tries to separate which is which

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5032094/site/newsweek/

Double Standards?

A Justice Department memo proposes that the United States hold others accountable for international laws on detainees— but that Washington did not have to follow them itself

Newsweek
Updated: 11:28 a.m. ET May 25, 2004
May 21 - In a crucial memo written four months after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, Justice Department lawyers advised that President George W. Bush and the U.S. military did not have to comply with any international laws in the handling of detainees in the war on terrorism. It was that conclusion, say some critics, that laid the groundwork for aggressive interrogation techniques that led to the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The draft memo, which drew sharp protest from the State Department, argued that the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war did not apply to any Taliban or Al Qaeda fighters being flown to the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, because Afghanistan was a “failed state” whose militia did not have any status under international treaties.

But the Jan. 9, 2002 memo, written by Justice lawyers John Yoo and Robert J. Delahunty, went far beyond that conclusion, explicitly arguing that no international laws—including the normally observed laws of war— applied to the United States at all because they did not have any status under federal law.

...more...

[drb]

16. Is this a set-up by the CIA?

That would be just toooooooo good!

[Media_Lies_Daily]

17. They did ask for further clarification, didn't they? The trap was set...

...and the NeoCons jumped in with both feet.

[hlthe2b]

5. As one who feels that suffocation and drowning are among the most

frightening ways to die..... This is Torture, plain and simple...

Aren't we proud to be Americans? I just want to cry.

[jbfam4]

6. Me too

I'll share my box of tissue with you.

Remember when Bush said " Help is on the way?"

[rfranklin]

8. Actually it was "Hell is on the way."

Please, God, strike down those who sin in your name.

[Occulus]

14. God cannot help us

whilst the Antichrist is on the throne for his seven year reign.

Any doubts? I'm losing mine....

[w13rd0]

7. In case anyone has forgotten...

...recall that we received, in exchange for torturing Abu Zubaydah, such valuable intel as "ports were going to be attacked by suicide scuba divers, and cities would be devestated by massive mutant lizards"...

Yeah, torture always yields such reliable results...

[schultzee]

9. Torture reveals fake results and they have to know that. Face it,

if most people are tortured they will say anything to make it stop.
The administration knows this; I have a weird feeling that some of these people may "like" the idea of torture. Yuck.

[TahitiNut]

11. I don't think it's just a coincidence that regimes which engage in torture

... have so many "reasons" to do so. Any regime that disrespects the innate value of human life and dignity is certain to attract retaliation. It is undoubtedly no surprise to those individuals who are willing to be suicide bombers that the regime they are attacking tortures and rapes prisoners.

By torturing prisoners, most of whom are not found guilty of any crimes whatsoever, at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, eight secret concentration camps in Afghanistan, and other prisons in Iraq, the Busholini Regime has proven itself deserving of the enmity it receives.

Under the Bush/Cheney regime, the US is an outlaw nation. This government (of the People, by the People, and for the People) has deprived the United States of honor, dignity, and integrity. Our nation is engaging in crimes against humanity. Unless the criminals of the Bush/Cheney regime are tried and punished for their crimes, we do not deserve the respect of civilized people in this world.

[H2O Man]

10. Very good post!

Thank you for putting the type of information on here that is so important for every one of us to read. This is the type of thing that makes being on DU fun! Plus, it is more evidence that the once solid foundation that this administration had built is crumbling, insuring their fall .... possibly before the November election. I enjoy reading the reactions to this, too! Thanks again!

[stickdog]

12. This article is full of shit ass covering.

We are supposed to feel this memo is just dandy because it was only meant for al Qaeda leaders.

Sure.

Whatever.

We believe you.

[struggle4progress]

13. It goes right to the top.

[struggle4progress]

15. kick

:kick: