1 Boring Old Man

Addington, Gonzales Witnessed Gitmo Interrogations In 2002;
Approved Of ‘Whatever Needs To Be Done’

Last month, ABC News revealed that President Bush’s most senior advisers approved the use of harsh interrogation tactics. Days later, Bush confirmed to ABC he “approved” of the tactics.

In a forthcoming book, British international law professor Phillippe Sands further documents how the most extreme interrogation techniques — including stress, hooding, noise, nudity, and “dogs” — came directly from the White House and Pentagon.

Sands reveals that Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s lawyer Jim Haynes traveled to Guantanamo in 2002, witnessed an interrogation, and sent approval back to Washington. The “driving individual was Mr. Addington, who was obviously the man in control,” Sands said: "There was an extraordinary meeting held in September 2002, just before the techniques were to go up the chain of command, so to speak. [Gonzales, Addington, and Haynes] descended on Guantanamo, met with the combatant commander there Mike Dunlavey, watched some interrogations, and as I was told by Dunlavey and by his lawyer Diane Beaver, basically sent out the signal ‘do whatever needs to be done.’"

^{The Four Horsemen: Gonzales, Addington, Haynes, and Yoo}

Which came first: memos or torture?

… But Yoo’s account of how and why the torture memos were crafted may not hold up. Congress is preparing hearings into the subject, and they have invited Yoo to testify. International law scholar Philippe Sands and other writers have punched holes in Yoo’s claims about the facts. It increasingly appears that the Bush interrogation program was already being used before Yoo was asked to write an opinion. He may therefore have provided after-the-fact legal cover. That would help explain why Yoo strained to take so many implausible positions in the memos.

It also appears that government lawyers had told Bush administration officials that some of the techniques already in use were illegal, even criminal. In fact, a senior Pentagon lawyer described to me exchanges he had with Yoo in which he stressed that those using the techniques could face prosecution. Yoo notes in his Pentagon memo that he communicated with the Criminal Division of the Justice Department and got assurances that prosecutions would not be brought. The question becomes, was Yoo giving his best effort at legal analysis, or was he attempting to protect the authors of the program from criminal investigation and prosecution?

In any case, Yoo kept the program running. Even the man who came in to run the Office of Legal Counsel after Yoo’s departure, Jack Goldsmith, has written that he understood Yoo’s project this way. Goldsmith also rescinded Yoo’s memos.

According to Human Rights First, more than 100 people have died in U.S. detention in the war on terrorism. It documented 11 cases where the deaths resulted from coercive interrogation techniques, and others where there was at least some connection. Yoo insists that there is no relationship between the deaths and his advice, because he didn’t set policy or carry it out, he merely offered a legal opinion. But had he refused to give the opinion that was sought, the program might have been suspended and some of those detainees might be alive…

History will hand down its own judgments. But right now it’s for us to live and write that history, in the choices we make and the promises we keep. And we can be proud of our country. The world is often untidy and dangerous. But for millions who suffer under tyranny, or who struggle to maintain newly won freedom, there would be little hope without the active commitment of the United States.

As much as a nation of influence, we’re also a nation of character. And that sets us apart from so many other great powers in history – from ancient empires to the expansionist regimes of the last century. We’re a superpower that has moral commitments and ideals that we not only proclaim, but that we act upon. Today, in a tough fight, we are turning events toward victory. And the world will be a better place because of what the United States of America did….

Failure in Iraq would also tell America’s friends that we cannot be counted on. We have to remember that in the broader Middle East, untold numbers of people have made a stand for freedom because the United States has led the fight. In Iraq, you’ve got the elected officials, hundreds of thousands of people in the security services, all of the millions of citizens who defied killers to go to the polls and choose their own leaders. It would be the gravest wrong to turn our backs on them and leave them to their fate.

And the impact of any such betrayal would be felt far beyond the borders of Iraq.