Wednesday, February 02, 2005

Kennedy's right: No on Gonzales...




link


Yet Mr. Gonzales refuses to tell us anything about how the Bybee-Gonzales Memorandum was written and why he ordered it. We know from press reports that the C.I.A. asked him for advice on how far the agency could go in interrogating detainees. In July 2002, he held meetings with other Administration officials to discuss how to legally justify certain interrogation methods. He refuses to tell us anything about those meetings.

He says he can't remember what specific interrogation methods were discussed.

He can't remember who asked for the Justice Department's legal advice in the first place.

He can't remember whether he made any suggestions to the Department on the drafting of the Bybee- Gonzales Memorandum, although he admits that "it would not be unusual" for his office to have done so.

He doesn't know how the memo was forwarded to the Defense Department and became part of its "Working Group Report" in April 2003, which was used to justify the new interrogation practices at Guantanamo. Those practices, in turn, to use the obscure word resorted to by the Administration, somehow "migrated" to U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, as if no human hand had been involved in the dissemination.

No comments: