The torturers

A
New York Times editorial                                                   Read Spanish Version

To
read the four newly released memos on prisoner interrogation written
by George W. Bush’s Justice Department is to take a journey into
depravity.

Their
language is the precise bureaucratese favored by dungeon masters
throughout history. They detail how to fashion a collar for slamming
a prisoner against a wall, exactly how many days he can be kept
without sleep (11), and what, specifically, he should be told before
being locked in a box with an insect — all to stop just short of
having a jury decide that these acts violate the laws against torture
and abusive treatment of prisoners.

In
one of the more nauseating passages, Jay Bybee, then an assistant
attorney general and now a federal judge, wrote admiringly about a
contraption for waterboarding that would lurch a prisoner upright if
he stopped breathing while water was poured over his face. He praised
the Central Intelligence Agency for having doctors ready to perform
an emergency tracheotomy if necessary.

These
memos are not an honest attempt to set the legal limits on
interrogations, which was the authors’ statutory obligation. They
were written to provide legal immunity for acts that are clearly
illegal, immoral and a violation of this country’s most basic
values.

It
sounds like the plot of a mob film, except the lawyers asking how
much their clients can get away with are from the C.I.A. and the
lawyers coaching them on how to commit the abuses are from the
Justice Department. And it all played out with the blessing of the
defense secretary, the attorney general, the intelligence director
and, most likely, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

The
Americans Civil Liberties Union deserves credit for suing for the
memos’ release. And President Obama deserves credit for overruling
his own C.I.A. director and ordering that the memos be made public.
It is hard to think of another case in which documents stamped “Top
Secret” were released with hardly any deletions.

But
this cannot be the end of the scrutiny for these and other decisions
by the Bush administration.

Until
Americans and their leaders fully understand the rules the Bush
administration concocted to justify such abuses — and who set the
rules and who approved them — there is no hope of fixing a
profoundly broken system of justice and ensuring that that these acts
are never repeated.

The
abuses and the dangers do not end with the torture memos. Americans
still know far too little about President Bush’s decision to
illegally eavesdrop on Americans — a program that has since been
given legal cover by the Congress.

Last
week, The Times reported that the nation’s intelligence agencies
have been collecting private e-mail messages and phone calls of
Americans on a scale that went beyond the broad limits established in
legislation last year. The article quoted the Justice Department as
saying there had been problems in the surveillance program that had
been resolved. But Justice did not say what those problems were or
what the resolution was.

That
is the heart of the matter: nobody really knows what any of the rules
were. Mr. Bush never offered the slightest explanation of what he
found lacking in the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act when
he decided to ignore the law after 9/11 and ordered the warrantless
wiretapping of Americans’ overseas calls and e-mail. He said he was
president and could do what he wanted.

The
Bush administration also never explained how it interpreted laws that
were later passed to expand the government’s powers to eavesdrop.
And the Obama administration argued in a recent court filing that
everything associated with electronic eavesdropping, including what
is allowed and what is not, is a state secret.

We
do not think Mr. Obama will violate Americans’ rights as Mr. Bush
did. But if Americans do not know the rules, they cannot judge
whether this government or any one that follows is abiding by the
rules.

In
the case of detainee abuse, Mr. Obama assured C.I.A. operatives that
they would not be prosecuted for actions that their superiors told
them were legal. We have never been comfortable with the “only
following orders” excuse, especially because Americans still do not
know what was actually done or who was giving the orders.

After
all, as far as Mr. Bush’s lawyers were concerned, it was not really
torture unless it involved breaking bones, burning flesh or pulling
teeth. That, Mr. Bybee kept noting, was what the Libyan secret police
did to one prisoner. The standard for American behavior should be a
lot higher than that of the Libyan secret police.

At
least Mr. Obama is not following Mr. Bush’s example of showy trials
for the small fry — like Lynndie England of Abu Ghraib notoriety.
But he has an obligation to pursue what is clear evidence of a
government policy sanctioning the torture and abuse of prisoners —
in violation of international law and the Constitution.

That
investigation should start with the lawyers who wrote these sickening
memos, including John Yoo, who now teaches law in California; Steven
Bradbury, who was job-hunting when we last heard; and Mr. Bybee, who
holds the lifetime seat on the federal appeals court that Mr. Bush
rewarded him with.

These
memos make it clear that Mr. Bybee is unfit for a job that requires
legal judgment and a respect for the Constitution. Congress should
impeach him. And if the administration will not conduct a thorough
investigation of these issues, then Congress has a constitutional
duty to hold the executive branch accountable. If that means putting
Donald Rumsfeld and Alberto Gonzales on the stand, even Dick Cheney,
we are sure Americans can handle it.

After
eight years without transparency or accountability, Mr. Obama
promised the American people both. His decision to release these
memos was another sign of his commitment to transparency. We are
waiting to see an equal commitment to accountability.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/opinion/19sun1.html?_r=2&ref=opinion