Many of the harsh interrogation techniques repudiated by the Pentagon on Wednesday would be made lawful by legislation put forward the same day by the Bush administration. And the courts would be forbidden from intervening.
The proposal is in the last 10 pages of an 86-page bill devoted mostly to military commissions, and it is a tangled mix of cross-references and pregnant omissions.
But legal experts say it adds up to an apparently unique interpretation of the Geneva Conventions, one that could allow C.I.A. operatives and others to use many of the very techniques disavowed by the Pentagon — including stress positions, sleep deprivation and extreme temperatures.
“It’s a Jekyll and Hyde routine,” Martin S. Lederman, who teaches constitutional law at Georgetown University, said of the administration’s dual approaches.
In effect, the administration is proposing to write into law a two-track system that has existed as a practical matter for some time.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/08/washington/08legal.html?hp&ex=1157688000&en=7293e08da3545f8b&ei=5094&partner=homepage