State Dept.: Torture Rules "Seriously Flawed,"Contrary to US, Intl Law

[BurtWorm]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A759-2004Jun23?language=printer

Lawyer for State Dept. Disputed Detainee Memo
Military Legal Advisers Also Questioned Tactics

By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 24, 2004; Page A07


A letter about detainee policy sent in 2002 from the State Department's legal adviser to the Justice Department's deputy assistant attorney general made no attempt at bureaucratic pleasantries.

William H. Taft IV said that Justice's legal advice to President Bush about how to handle detainees in the war on terrorism was "seriously flawed" and its reasoning was "incorrect as well as incomplete." Justice's arguments were "contrary to the official position of the United States, the United Nations and all other states that have considered the issue," Taft said.

Taft's Jan. 11 letter, obtained by The Washington Post, was omitted from the hundreds of pages of documents released Tuesday by the Bush administration. The release was part of an effort to present the administration's policies on detainees since Sept. 11, 2001, as fully compliant with domestic and international law.

A fuller picture -- of senior administration officials who sought to reinterpret the law and sanction tougher treatment of detainees in the face of strongly expressed dissents by the State Department and the military services -- emerges from the State Department letter and other previously undisclosed memos....

[fdr_hst_fan]

1. And what do we have for the contestants, Johnny?

Well, the Justice Dept. has just won an all-expense-paid (buy the US tapayers) trip to DUH!!!!!