<snip> Asked if he opposed the use of torture, Gonzales said he did. But when asked whether U.S. soldiers or intelligence agents could "legally engage in torture under any circumstances," Gonzales said: "I don't believe so, but I'd want to get back to you on that and make sure I don't provide a misleading answer." The statement itself is as misleading as it gets.
As if to underline the point, Gonzales wrote later, in answer to questions he failed to clearly answer in testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, that nonmilitary U.S. personnel overseas - mainly agents of the Central Intelligence Agency - were not bound by a 2002 presidential directive that promised the humane treatment of prisoners. But the question was moot, he said, because the president had also banned the use of torture, a ban that Gonzales said applies to the CIA and all other U.S. agencies.
The backdrop to all this sidestepping is the accumulating evidence of abuses of detainees that goes far beyond the few "bad apples" that senior administration officials have blamed for the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. How many bad apples does it take to form a pattern suggesting that something is terribly wrong with the way U.S. military and intelligence operatives have treated those in their custody?
Even if Gonzales' own involvement in this growing scandal is limited to his legal advice to the president - itself an appalling lapse in judicial prudence, in our view - his unwillingness to give straight answers about what constitutes torture and how the administration plans to end it once and for all is further evidence that this White House still can't bring itself to level with the American people, correct the mistakes it's made and begin the long process of restoring U.S. credibility in the world. <snip>
http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/story/12143998p-13014185c.html
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