Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Washington Times
June 18, 2008
Pg. 6
Legal advice 'irresponsible' says Graham
By Anne Flaherty, Associated Press
In October 2002, as the Defense Department's lawyers debated the legality of abusive interrogation methods, one Pentagon official made an observation.
"This looks like the kind of stuff congressional hearings are made of," wrote Mark Fallon, head of the Pentagon's Criminal Investigation Task Force, in an e-mail to his colleagues. "Someone needs to be considering how history will look back at this."
Indeed, six years later, Mr. Fallon's e-mail and other documents have become the subject of a Senate investigation that revealed the Pentagon pursued the harsh interrogation methods despite warnings that they were cruel and even illegal.
The findings, detailed in a hearing Tuesday, brought rebukes of the Pentagon effort from Democrats and Republicans alike.
"The guidance (administration lawyers) provided will go down in history as some of the most irresponsible and shortsighted legal analysis ever provided to our nation's military and intelligence communities," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, an Air Force Reserve colonel who teaches military law for the service.
The hearing is the Senate Armed Services Committee's first look at the origins of harsh interrogation methods and how policy decisions were vetted across the Defense Department. Its review fits into a broader picture of the government's handling of detainees, which includes FBI and CIA interrogations in secret prisons.
The panel is expected to hold further hearings on the matter and release a final report by the end of the year.
Among its initial findings is that senior Pentagon lawyers, including the office of general counsel William "Jim" Haynes, sought information as early as July 2002 regarding a military program that trained U.S. troops how to survive enemy interrogations and deny foes valuable intelligence.
Much of the training program, known as "Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape," or SERE, is based on experiences of American prisoners of war in previous conflicts, including those in Korea and Vietnam.
In response, SERE officials provided Mr. Haynes' office with a list of tactics that included sensory deprivation, sleep disruption and stress positions.
Mr. Haynes, who resigned his post in February, testified that he remembers receiving the information, but that he did not recall requesting it personally.
Several of those techniques, including stress positions, were later approved by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in a December 2002 memo for use at Guantanamo Bay. Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Haynes agreed to the methods, despite objections by military service lawyers that they might be illegal.
"Whatever interrogation techniques we adopt will eventually become public knowledge," wrote Col. John Ley of the Army's Judge Advocate General office in November 2002. "If we mistreat detainees, we will quickly lose the (moral) high ground and public support will erode."
Mr. Haynes said he too had misgivings, but that he was unaware of the legal objections in the military services. He said he was doing the best he could to help prevent another major terrorist attack.
"There was a limited amount of time and a high degree of urgency," Mr. Haynes said of his decision to cut short at one point a department-wide review of the legality of the interrogation methods.
Sen. Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said Mr. Rumsfeld's endorsement paved the way for abuses to occur in Iraq and Afghanistan and made U.S. troops more likely to someday be tortured if captured by the enemy.
"If we use those same techniques offensively against detainees, it says to the world that they have America's stamp of approval," Mr. Levin said.
June 18, 2008
Pg. 6
Legal advice 'irresponsible' says Graham
By Anne Flaherty, Associated Press
In October 2002, as the Defense Department's lawyers debated the legality of abusive interrogation methods, one Pentagon official made an observation.
"This looks like the kind of stuff congressional hearings are made of," wrote Mark Fallon, head of the Pentagon's Criminal Investigation Task Force, in an e-mail to his colleagues. "Someone needs to be considering how history will look back at this."
Indeed, six years later, Mr. Fallon's e-mail and other documents have become the subject of a Senate investigation that revealed the Pentagon pursued the harsh interrogation methods despite warnings that they were cruel and even illegal.
The findings, detailed in a hearing Tuesday, brought rebukes of the Pentagon effort from Democrats and Republicans alike.
"The guidance (administration lawyers) provided will go down in history as some of the most irresponsible and shortsighted legal analysis ever provided to our nation's military and intelligence communities," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, an Air Force Reserve colonel who teaches military law for the service.
The hearing is the Senate Armed Services Committee's first look at the origins of harsh interrogation methods and how policy decisions were vetted across the Defense Department. Its review fits into a broader picture of the government's handling of detainees, which includes FBI and CIA interrogations in secret prisons.
The panel is expected to hold further hearings on the matter and release a final report by the end of the year.
Among its initial findings is that senior Pentagon lawyers, including the office of general counsel William "Jim" Haynes, sought information as early as July 2002 regarding a military program that trained U.S. troops how to survive enemy interrogations and deny foes valuable intelligence.
Much of the training program, known as "Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape," or SERE, is based on experiences of American prisoners of war in previous conflicts, including those in Korea and Vietnam.
In response, SERE officials provided Mr. Haynes' office with a list of tactics that included sensory deprivation, sleep disruption and stress positions.
Mr. Haynes, who resigned his post in February, testified that he remembers receiving the information, but that he did not recall requesting it personally.
Several of those techniques, including stress positions, were later approved by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in a December 2002 memo for use at Guantanamo Bay. Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Haynes agreed to the methods, despite objections by military service lawyers that they might be illegal.
"Whatever interrogation techniques we adopt will eventually become public knowledge," wrote Col. John Ley of the Army's Judge Advocate General office in November 2002. "If we mistreat detainees, we will quickly lose the (moral) high ground and public support will erode."
Mr. Haynes said he too had misgivings, but that he was unaware of the legal objections in the military services. He said he was doing the best he could to help prevent another major terrorist attack.
"There was a limited amount of time and a high degree of urgency," Mr. Haynes said of his decision to cut short at one point a department-wide review of the legality of the interrogation methods.
Sen. Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said Mr. Rumsfeld's endorsement paved the way for abuses to occur in Iraq and Afghanistan and made U.S. troops more likely to someday be tortured if captured by the enemy.
"If we use those same techniques offensively against detainees, it says to the world that they have America's stamp of approval," Mr. Levin said.