Is the Administration Hiding a New Torture Memo?

[kpete]

The Pentagon Torture Papers
by emptywheel

Just a follow-up to my post on the ACLU subpoena. The ACLU motion http://www.aclu.org/images/asset_upload_file251_27648.pdf to quash the subpoena includes a good deal more on the document the government wants back. It appears that BushCo altered their torture policy in December 2005--and revelation of the fact that they did so--and how they did so--would be embarrassing enough they're willing to invent new rules to get that document back.

................... the government doesn't want it because it'll reveal how its policy on torture changed last December, not because it'll damage national security. And note the comment about the date in the first excerpt--apparently, the government did something in December of last year that it doesn't want you to know it did.

Just by way of reminder, the Administration originally justified its torture policy using the Bybee Memo, which was written on August 1, 2002. Thanks to Sy Hersh, the Abu Ghraib scandal broke in April 2004. In an effort to "come clean" on torture, the Administration did a document dump--including the Bybee memo--on June 22, 2004 (Bybee was, by that point, already secure in his lifetime appointment to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals). Then, after BushCo won the election, they had to find a way to get Abu Gonzales approved by the Senate to be Attorney General. So in January 2005--12 months before this document was written--they effectively repudiated the memo. Kind of. Here's John Dean's description of what happened http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20050114.html.


Call me crazy. But the fact that the Administration is using Pentagon Paper-like tactics to get this December 2005 policy back suggests that what they told us about their torture policy in January 2005 in order to get Abu Gonzales approved--and what really was their policy--are two different things.

much more info and links at:
http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2006/12/the_pentagon_to.html#more
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/12/14/134058/66

[whistle]

1. Lies, lies and more lies from an administration and a president

....and all of this president's cronies which just can't tell the truth.

"The workers of the world have nothing to lose, but their chains, workers of the world unite." --Karl Marx