Ex-Military Lawyers Object to Gonzales

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Ex-Military Lawyers Object to Bush Cabinet Nominee
By NEIL A. LEWIS

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/16/politics/16jag.html
Published: December 16, 2004

WASHINGTON, Dec. 15 - Several former high-ranking military lawyers say they are discussing ways to oppose President Bush's nomination of Alberto R. Gonzales to be attorney general, asserting that Mr. Gonzales's supervision of legal memorandums that appeared to sanction harsh treatment of detainees, even torture, showed unsound legal judgment.



The memorandum also said that executive branch officials, including those in the military, could be immune from domestic and international prohibitions against torture for a variety of reasons, including a belief by interrogators that they were acting on orders from superiors "except where the conduct goes so far as to be patently unlawful." Another memorandum said the Geneva Conventions did not apply to the conflict in Afghanistan.
"He was not thinking about the United States' history in abiding by international law, especially in the wartime context," he said. "For that reason, some of us think he is a poor choice to be attorney general."


"He went forum-shopping," General Cullen said, saying Mr. Gonzales had ignored the advice of military lawyers adamantly opposed to some of the legal strategies adopted, including narrowly defining torture so as to make it difficult to prove it occurred. "When you create these kinds of policies that can eventually be used against your own soldiers, when we say 'only follow the Geneva Conventions as much as it suits us,' when we take steps that the common man would understand is torture, this undermines what we are supposed to be, and many of us find it appalling," he said.


Mr. Gonzales and the White House have already been put on notice by Senate Democrats that he should expect to be questioned vigorously about his role in the memorandums. Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the Judiciary Committee's ranking Democrat, sent several letters to Mr. Gonzales, the most recent of which said that "you will be asked to describe your role in both the interpretation of the law and the development of policies that led to what I and many others consider to have been a disregard for the rule of law," the practices at Abu Ghraib. "You will be called upon to explain in detail your role in developing policies related to the interrogation and treatment of foreign prisoners."

[teryang]

1. Oh no, not that!

They are going to question him vigorously! The man should be in irons with the rest of the administration. Frivolous lawsuits indeed.