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http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0202-01.htmPublished on Wednesday, February 2, 2005 by the San Francisco Chronicle
Gonzales OK Could Be Seen as OK for Torture Rules
by Robert Collier
After a year of near-constant revelations and allegations, the controversy over the use of torture in the war on terror is reaching its crucial moment in the Senate debate over whether to confirm Alberto Gonzales as attorney general. If Gonzales is confirmed, which appears likely, the Bush administration is likely to claim that Congress has given a firm mandate for its interrogation policies, just as President Bush said his re-election victory in November was a new mandate for his policies on Iraq.
"People who wanted a public discussion of this issue of interrogation methods have had it, for almost a year now," said John Yoo, a UC Berkeley law professor who played a key role in helping craft the administration's policies on torture when he was a Justice Department official from 2001 to 2003.
"There has been debate, press leaks, hearings. Sen. (John) Kerry could have attacked President Bush on torture during the election campaign, but in fact, he tried to outflank the president on the right on terrorism. Congress could have expanded the statute on terrorism to tighten interrogation rules, but it hasn't.
The election and the confirmation of Gonzales are a sign of general support of the administration's anti-terrorism policies, which include interrogation and the Patriot Act." <snip>
"It would send the wrong signal, it would say that Abu Ghraib-style abuses are to be winked at," said Avidan Cover, a lawyer for Human Rights First, a New York legal group, referring to the Iraqi prison that sparked worldwide outrage when abuses there were revealed last May.
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