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Eli Lake Defends the “Rectal Feeding” Consensus in DC

Democrats and Republicans do not agree that waterboarding to capture terrorists was a crime, but many do agree it was a blunder.

That’s the central wisdom offered by Eli Lake, in a piece arguing against a Human Rights Watch report calling on renewed accountability for torture based on the evidence presented in the Senate Torture Report.

It’s a bit of a muddle. Obviously, Lake’s reference to waterboarding invokes the understanding of torture prior to the SSCI Report, which revealed far more than waterboarding, including anal rape masquerading as rectal feeding. If there’s a consensus he’s defending, it’s a consensus about waterboarding and “rectal feeding.”

By the end of his piece, he argues both that his claimed consensus is breaking down, and that it still holds — though here, again, he’s focusing on waterboarding, not the anal rape that’s also at issue.

At the end of the Obama administration, that bipartisan consensus is beginning to erode. In 2008, both the Democratic (Obama) and Republican (Senator John McCain) candidates opposed torture and favored closing Guantanamo. In 2015 Donald Trump has come out enthusiastically for waterboarding, pledging to authorize its use again if elected president. Carly Fiorina has defended waterboarding, saying it yielded valuable intelligence, and Jeb Bush has said he is open to repealing the ban on torture imposed by Obama.

Nonetheless other Republicans have held a firmer line. Both Ted Cruz and Rand Paul voted for the anti-torture amendment this summer. Many progressives hope this bipartisan opposition to torture can hold together after Obama leaves office. But this consensus will break apart if a foreign court prosecutes George W. Bush for a crime Barack Obama has long considered a blunder.

Key to understanding Lake’s call to hold off on investigating the torturers, though, is that “anti-torture amendment” that Cruz and Paul support but Carly and Trump might not. Here’s how HRW describes the amendment — which is a call to adhere to the Army Field Manual — in its report.

On June 16, 2015, the US Senate passed an amendment proposed by senators John McCain and Dianne Feinstein to a defense spending bill (the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016) that if it becomes law, could codify much of what is in Obama’s executive order 13491.[549] The amendment passed in the Senate by a vote of 78-21.[550] The entire bill was then vetoed by Obama over other issues, but a similar provision remained in the compromised version bill which, as of this writing, was expected to be signed into law by the President.[551] It provides that any individual detained by the US in an armed conflict can only be interrogated in ways outlined by the US Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogations. It also requires review and updating of the manual within three years to ensure that it reflects current best practice and complies with all US legal obligations and requires that the International Committee of the Red Cross get “notification of, and prompt” access to, all prisoners held by the US in any armed conflict.[552] It is already clear under US law that torture and other ill-treatment is illegal but this requirement would help to more specifically restrain the physical action certain US interrogators could take.[553] However, it is also impossible to know for sure how future administrations will interpret its obligations under the provisions. Additionally, an exemption for the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and other federal “law enforcement entities” was added to the compromised version of the bill.

That is, the amendment actually defers the review of techniques in the AFM to the next Administration, potentially a Cruz or Paul one, and doesn’t apply to the FBI.

As I and–especially–Jeff Kaye have pointed out, however, so long as the AFM has Appendix M in it, it can’t be considered a reliable guard against torture. Here’s part of what Kaye had to say about the watered down form in which the amendment was passed.

In what Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein called a “minor” change to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a mandated review of the Army Field Manual (AFM) on interrogation was moved from one year to three years from now.

According to a “Q&A” at Human Rights First last June, the mandated review of the AFM was part of the McCain-Feinstein amendment to the NDAA, and was meant “to ensure that its interrogation approaches are lawful, humane, and based on the most up-to-date science.”

The fact there was any “review” at all was really a response to criticism from the United Nation’s Committee Against Torture, which demanded a review of the AFM’s Appendix M, which has been long criticized as allowing abusive interrogation techniques, including isolation, sleep deprivation, and sensory deprivation.

[snip]

While it is a good thing that waterboarding and other SERE-derived forms of torture are not to be allowed anymore — and they were part of an experimental program in any case — long-standing forms of torture are now protected by law because they are part of the Army Field Manual itself.

[snip]

When the pre-veto version of the NDAA was passed — the version that made the Army Field Manual on interrogation literally the law of the land — all the liberals and human rights groups stood up and applauded. None of them mentioned that only months before the UN had criticized the document for use of abusive techniques, and in particular the use of isolation, and sleep and sensory deprivation noted above. Not one.

So what we have now — what Lake would like to uphold — is a deferral of the issue to a potential Republican Administration. That’s not actually a consensus preventing torture at all .

Along the way to Lake’s conclusion showing any consensus against torture isn’t really a consensus against torture, he does cite to some people — Jack Goldsmith (prior to the report, though I suspect he’d still say the same, even though I’m not sure Americans would be as supportive of “rectal feeding” as of a whitewashed description of waterboarding), Glenn Carle, Raha Wala — who oppose reopening the torture question inside the United States. Yet along the way Lake keeps dodging DOJ’s approach to it.

Part of the problem for Human Rights Watch is that the Justice Department has already investigated cases where CIA officers went beyond the legal guidelines, and ended this probe in 2012 without pursuing prosecutions. Pitter pointed out that the federal prosecutor in this case, John Durham, has acknowledged that there were limitations on the evidence available to his team. Nonetheless, the Justice Department has not taken up the issue again.

DOJ has not taken up the issue again because it has refused to open the Torture Report. DOJ can’t very well consider the additional evidence (on top of talking to victims, which HRW did for its report) in the report so long as it doesn’t open it.

Which actually supports HRW’s point: there’s a conspiracy to cover up this torture, and given that it won’t be investigated here, other countries have an obligation to do so.

I actually think Lake misses a way to make his muddled argument much stronger. For one, I think there might be more consensus, blindly defending the US, if a foreign court started prosecuting the US for torture. If HRW gets its way — and foreign governments investigate torture — you’ll see a lot more agreement that the US shouldn’t have to submit to the review of other countries.

But I actually think the fact the anti-prosecution consensus is now defending anal rape and not just waterboarding is key. If we discussed the anal rape as such — as HRW does — it becomes a lot harder to defend (though there is admittedly far too much public tolerance of rape in criminal prisons in this country, to say nothing of Gitmo, to believe more candid discussion that this was really always about rape would sway the public).

The CIA also used “rectal rehydration” or “rectal feeding” which, as described in the Senate Summary, would amount to sexual assault, on at least five different detainees. The practice, not known to have been authorized by the OLC, involved inserting pureed food or liquid nutrients into the detainee’s rectum through a tube, presumably without his consent.[343]The CIA claims this was a medically necessary procedure and not an “enhanced interrogation technique.”[344] The Senate Summary, however, states the procedure was done “without evidence of medical necessity.”[345] Medical experts report that use of this type of procedure without evidence of medical necessity is “a form of sexual assault masquerading as medical treatment.”[346] At least three other detainees were threatened with “rectal rehydrations.” Allegations of excessive force used on two detainees during rectal exams to do not appear to have been properly investigated.[347] One of those two detainees, Mustafa al-Hawsawi, was later diagnosed with chronic hemorrhoids, an anal fissure, and symptomaticrectal prolapse.[348] Some CIA detainees have also reported having suppositories forced into their anus,[349] and other detainees have reported CIA operatives sticking fingers in their anus.[350]

But once you defend anal rape in the terms CIA and its supporters do — that obviously bogus claim that it served as feeding or rehydration — you quickly get to an ongoing practice that is often contraindicated by medical necessity but used for coercion: forced feeding at Gitmo. Excruciating nasal feeding, rather than excruciating rectal feeding.

Here’s what documents submitted in Abu Wa’el Dhiab’s bid lat year to halt his own forced-feeding revealed.

[T]hese documents reveal[] that back on May 7, one of the government’s primary rebuttals to claims about the conditions under which Dhiab was force fed last year was not to refute those claims, but rather to claim he had no standing to complain because he was not — at that point — being force fed.  Only 6 days later Gitmo cleared Dhiab to be force fed.

Underlying this discussion is Dhiab’s claim that the government has made the standards for force feeding arbitrary so as to be able to subject those detainees leading force feeding campaigns to painful treatment to get them to stop.

To substantiate that argument, the memorandum unsealed on Friday lays out the changes made to Gitmo’s force feeding protocol in November and December. Those changes include:

  • Deletion of limits on the speed at which detainees could be force fed
  • Elimination of guidelines on responding to complaints about speed of force feeding
  • Change of weight monitoring from daily to weekly
  • Deletion of chair restraint guidelines (DOD made a special SOP to cover restraint chair they have thus far refused to turn over)
  • Expansion of scenarios in which prisoners can be force fed, including those at 85% of ideal body weight (IBW)
  • Deletion of provisions against on-off force feeding
  • Discontinuation of use of Reglan (this has to do with potentially permanent side effects from the drug)
  • Replacement of phrase “hunger strike” with phrase “medical management of detainees with weight loss”

In response, the government argued (at a time Dhiab was not eating but before they put him on the force feeding list) that he didn’t have standing because he had not been force fed for 2 months.

That is, Dhiab argued compellingly that force-feeding as it sometimes occurs at Gitmo is about coercion through pain, not about medical necessity.

Particularly during periods of broad hunger striking in Gitmo, it hasn’t been (primarily) about feeding prisoners who don’t want to eat. It has been about breaking resistance.

Along with Appendix M, the force-feeding practices at Gitmo are another thing the UN objected to last year.

And while Dhiab has been released, the 75-pound Tariq Ba Odah remains on hunger strike, though the Obama Administration still claims the authority to detain him (Odah has been cleared for release since 2010) and force-feed him, even though years of the process have created severe medical problems with doing so.

On this issue — the use of torturous techniques to coerce submission — I absolutely agree with Lake there is consensus. While some — including Dianne Feinstein and Gladys Kessler (who has seen videos of the process) oppose it — we’re not seeing any legislation to stop the practice and the Executive continues to insist it has absolute discretion in treatment of detainees at Gitmo so long as it is willing to claim it’s doing so for their own good, however dubious those claims may appear. That’s true, in part, because Democrats don’t want to discomfit their president.

And so, in the end, I agree with Lake that there is a consensus in DC. I’d even argue it’s nowhere near as fragile as he suggests by the end of his piece.

But I’d also argue the consensus that it is okay to nasally or rectally “feed” human beings — in some cases, for years — so long as you can excuse the obviously coerced submission involved with a claim of medical necessity is precisely why others should intervene. Lake may be right that there’s a consensus saying “rectal feeding” shouldn’t be prosecuted, but that doesn’t mean that consensus is defensible.

The Obama Administration Debate on the Convention Against Torture and Anas al-Libi

For some reason, the NYT decided to bury this article from Charlie Savage on page A21. It explains that the Obama Administration is debating internally whether to overturn Obama’s ban against cruelty (which is also mandated by the Detainee Treatment Act). Some intelligence lawyers, apparently, believe Obama’s torture ban and the DTA are too limiting.

It is considering reaffirming the Bush administration’s position that the treaty imposes no legal obligation on the United States to bar cruelty outside its borders, according to officials who discussed the deliberations on the condition of anonymity.

[snip]

State Department lawyers are said to be pushing to officially abandon the Bush-era interpretation. Doing so would require no policy changes, since Mr. Obama issued an executive order in 2009 that forbade cruel interrogations anywhere and made it harder for a future administration to return to torture.

But military and intelligence lawyers are said to oppose accepting that the treaty imposes legal obligations on the United States’ actions abroad. They say they need more time to study whether it would have operational impacts. They have also raised concerns that current or future wartime detainees abroad might invoke the treaty to sue American officials with claims of torture, although courts have repeatedly thrown out lawsuits brought by detainees held as terrorism suspects.

There were remarkable amounts of denial in response to this, from people who seem totally unaware of the kind of practices — that appear to include isolation, sleep deprivation, food manipulation, and other forms of coercion — currently used by High Value Interrogation Group (HIG), the inter-Agency group used to interrogate terrorist suspects. And this post from David Luban, which lays out some of the loopholes the government might be using to engage in abuse, misses a few.

We know, for example, that there are 2 OLC opinions that say Presidents don’t have to change the text of Executive Orders they choose to ignore, meaning Obama could ignore his torture ban “legally.” There’s also the Appendix M OLC opinion that has approved whatever DOD wants to sneak into the sometimes classified appendix in advance.

All of these issues have been invoked in the case of Anas al-Libi, who recently testified in his challenge to the use of the statements he made to FBI’s Clean Team in his trial, invoking the anxiety produced by the “CIA” interrogation al-Libi experienced on the USS San Antonio. (The interrogation was conducted by the HIG; note that while al-Libi has retained counsel, Bernard Kleinman, I believe he also still has public defenders, including Sabrina Shroff, who has represented HIG-interrogated defendants before, so she can attest to the continuity of the methods involved.)

Al-Libi, a 50-year-old Libyan whose legal name is Nazi Abdul al-Ruqai, testified before U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in an evidentiary hearing tightly focused on the moments following al-Libi’s transfer on October 12, 2013, from military to civilian custody.

Given the situation, “I couldn’t concentrate on anything,” al-Libi told the court through an Arabic translator. When asked by his attorney, Bernard Kleinman, why he signed the papers waving his Miranda rights and paving the way for an FBI interview, al-Libi said, “You have no choice but to sign it.”

And in a filing calling on the government to preserve videotapes and any other records of his shipboard interrogation, al-Libi’s Libyan-retained lawyer invoked precisely the law and Executive Order in question.

18. Upon information and belief he was subjected to daily interrogation by professsional interrogator[s] of the CIA in an unrelenting, hostile, and extraordinary manner.

19.Upon information and belief this interrogation was conducted in a manner in violation of the Defendant’s rights under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the federal Constitution, and under applicable treaties and conventions to which the United States is a signatory.2

20.Furthermore, this interrogation was conducted in a manner of inhumane treatment. Notwithstanding the changes effected by both Congress3 and the President4 after the revelations of physical abuse and torture as conducted by the CIA in the name of national security, such measures (even if actually observed by the participants and interrogators) could easily lead to harsh, improper and inhumane treatment that would taint any and all subsequent interrogations, even if preceded by a Miranda warning and waiver execution, and conducted by the FBI or some other federal law enforcement agents.

21. Upon information and belief, these interrogations were videotaped, and otherwise recorded by the CIA, among other U.S. Government agencies.

22.It is, furthermore, reasonable and logical to presume that the interrogator[s] produced hard copy notes of their actions, and provided reports to other representatives of the United States Government (both in the Executive and Legislative branches).

3 In 2005 Congress passed the Detainee Treatment Act, Pub. L. No. 109-148, codified at U.S.C. §§ 2000dd, 2000dd-0, and 2000dd-J, which applied the U.S. Army Field Manual to all military interrogations. It should be noted that the Act specifically provides that

No individual in the custody or under the physical control of the United States Government, regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.

The degree and extent to which the United States Government violated this statute in the kidnapping, abduction, and interrogation of the Defendant are issues to be raised similarly in any subsequent motions made pursuant to Rule 12(b).

4 On January 22, 2009, President Obama issued Executive Order 13491, which directed the CIA to adopt the methods of interrogation as set forth in the U.S. Army Field Manual. See E.O. 13491,74 Fed. Reg. 4893 (Jan. 22, 2009).

5 Both the Detainee Treatment Act and E.O. 13491 refer to the U.S. ARMY FIELD MANUAL, HUMAN INTELLIGENCE COLLECTOR OPERATIONS, referenced as FM 2.22.3 (Sept. 2006 ed.).

I think there are probably a number of HIG-interrogated individuals — including some who were interrogated entirely within the US — who could claim they were subject to degrading treatment. But in this case, the person in question has a privately-retained lawyer, which may present significant concerns for the interrogators in question.

Meanwhile, the government is not providing al-Libi cancer treatment doctors at Duke said during the summer he needs to address liver cancer. Maybe the government is just hoping al-Libi will succumb to cancer before he can press these issues?

Whatever the plan, the government is at least entertaining widening the loopholes that they used in the past to protect torturers.

US Embarrasses Self Again on Symbolism of Newest Floating Prison

The USS San Antonio entering New York Harbor during Fleet Week, 2006. When I first saw this photo, I thought that the image created the illusion that the ship was holding the Statue of Liberty, but it turns out that is part of the ship's structure and not Liberty's torch that we see. I still can't quite shake that metaphor, however.

The USS San Antonio entering New York Harbor during Fleet Week, 2006. When I first saw this photo, I thought that the image created the illusion that the ship was holding the Statue of Liberty, but it turns out that is part of the ship’s structure and not Liberty’s torch that we see. I still can’t quite shake that metaphor, however.

I fought what seemed to be a one-person battle over what appeared to me to be efforts by the United States to rehabilitate the image of the USS Bataan. In 2010, I pointed out the depravity of using a ship that once was a floating torture chamber as a hospital ship during Katrina and then after the earthquake in Haiti. And then I completely went ballistic when the Bataan Rehabilitation March came even closer to home with the disgusting spectacle of the torture ship being used to stage a college basketball game. At least Mother Nature won that particular round, as the game had to be cancelled at halftime when the surface of the court became unplayable due to moisture as the ship cooled in evening air.

The whole concept of the floating “interrogation” ship is being used again by the US and the naturally arising question is that if no less than Charlie Savage is being used on the preemptive “nothing to see here, move along” gov-splaining of the use of the ship is needed, is the US reverting to the torture practices that were carried out on the Bataan? But this time, instead of the USS Bataan, the interrogation of Abu Anas al-Libi is being carried out on the USS San Antonio. The San Antonio can be considered the poster child for all that is wrong with military procurement systems today:

Five years ago, the USS San Antonio (the first LPD 17 class ship) entered service. Or at least tried to. The builders had done a very shoddy job, and it took the better part of a year to get the ship in shape.

/snip/

Although the San Antonio did get into service, it was then brought in for more inspections and sea trials, and failed miserably. It cost $36 million and three months to get everything fixed. The workmanship and quality control was so poor that it’s believed that the San Antonio will always be a flawed ship and will end up being retired early.

Just as the San Antonio was “commissioned” and then towed back for repairs because it couldn’t move on its own, the “interrogation” that is currently underway for al-Libi is a false start and a “clean team” will have to be brought in for any interrogations that will be used should al-Libi ever be brought to trial. From the gov-splanation: Read more

“Incentives for Cooperation”

David Kris gave a speech at the Brookings Institute last week, largely intended to make the case for civilian trials. Here’s the main framework of the speech:

Today, however, the consensus that developed in the aftermath of 9/11 shows some signs of unraveling.  In particular, there are some who say that law enforcement can’t – or shouldn’t – be used for counterterrorism.  They appear to believe that we should treat all terrorists exclusively as targets for other parts of the Intelligence Community or the Defense Department.

The argument, as I understand it, is basically the following:

  1. We are at war.
  2. Our enemies in this war are not common criminals.
  3. Therefore we should fight them using military and intelligence methods, not law enforcement methods.

This is a simple and rhetorically powerful argument, and precisely for that reason it may be attractive.

In my view, however, and with all due respect, it is not correct.  And it will, if adopted, make us less safe.  Of course, it’s not that law enforcement is always the right tool for combating terrorism.  But it’s also not the case that it’s never the right tool.  The reality, I think, is that it’s sometimes the right tool.  And whether it’s the right tool in any given case depends on the specific facts of that case.

Here’s my version of the argument:

  1. We’re at war.  The President has said this many times, as has the Attorney General.
  2. In war you must try to win – no other goal is acceptable.
  3. To win the war, we need to use all available tools that are consistent with the law and our values, selecting in any case the tool that is best under the circumstances.

We must, in other words, be relentlessly pragmatic and empirical.  We can’t afford to limit our options artificially, or yield to pre-conceived notions of suitability or “correctness.”  We have to look dispassionately at the facts, and then respond to those facts using whatever methods will best lead us to victory.

Put in more concrete terms, we should use the tool that’s designed best for the problem we face.  When the problem looks like a nail, we need to use a hammer.  But when it looks like a bolt, we need to use a wrench.  Hitting a bolt with a hammer makes a loud noise, and it can be satisfying in some visceral way, but it’s not effective and it’s not smart.  If we want to win, we can’t afford that.

If you take this idea seriously, it complicates strategic planning, because it requires a detailed understanding of our various counterterrorism tools.  If you’re a pragmatist, focused relentlessly on winning, you can’t make policy or operational decisions at 30,000 feet.  You have to come down, and get into the weeds, and understand the details of our counterterrorism tools at the operational level.

And that leads me to this question:  as compared to the viable alternatives, what is the value of law enforcement in this war?  Does it in fact help us win?  Or is it categorically the wrong tool for the job – at best a distraction, and at worst an affirmative impediment?

It really summarizes the Obama Administration’s embrace of man-ego-driven “pragmatism” and wonkiness in all things. The response to outright demagoguery (the “we are at war so we must torture and kill kill kill” perspective), the Obama Administration presents an alternative, purportedly pragmatic formulation that suffers from its own problems.

“We are at war either because of or as evidenced by the fact that the two big men keep saying we are.” Sure, Kris’ speechwriter might just have been trying to rebut the nutters who like to score points by claiming that Obama doesn’t agree with Dick Cheney that This Is War. But note what it does for this entire “pragmatic” argument: it presents the fact–“we are at war” with no examination of either the statement itself or the nuance covered up by it. It avoids questions like, “Against whom are we at war?” “Are we just at war against formal members of al Qaeda, or are we also at war against American losers who read Anwar al-Awlaki on the interToobz and go on to buy a GPS but never actually succeed at contacting anyone from al Qaeda?” “Why are we at war against some terrorism but not other terrorism and, at this point, are we even targeting the most effective and dangerous terrorists?” “What is the objective of this war?” “If we’ve embraced the concept of war, have we also embraced the legal concepts of war?” The Obama Administration has, like the Bush Administration, actually picked and chosen when it wants to claim to be at war and when that’s inconvenient; with a little more examination of the premise itself, we might be able to find a more reasonable way to resolve these inconsistencies. But “pragmatic” claim notwithstanding, this entire thought exercise starts by refusing to examine the foundational premise.

“We’re at war and so we must win!” Here’s where unexamined first principles, driven by man-ego, really introduce problems into this formula. Sure, if you’re at war, you want to win it (though it helps to define what winning looks like). But it assumes certain sorts of acts in its definition: “We must crush those Islamic extremists in our bare hands and eat them for breakfast!” (If you’re John Yoo, you must crush the testicles of Islamic extremists’ children…) Read more

DOD’s Latest Black Site

Fresh off of the ICRC’s confirmation that DOD has a black site in Bagram, Marc Ambinder has a long piece on it, describing it as run by part of the DIA, the Defense Counterintelligence and Human Intelligence Center, and downplaying, somewhat, what its use of Appendix M might mean. For example, he describes the Appendix to cover just short bouts of sleep deprivation and some sensory deprivation.

However, under secret authorization, the DIA interrogators use methods detailed in an appendix to the Field Manual, Appendix M, which spells out “restricted” interrogation techniques.

Under certain circumstances, interrogators can deprive prisoners of sleep (four hours at a time, for up to 30 days), to confuse their senses, and to keep them separate from the rest of the prison population. The Red Cross is now notified if the captives are kept at the facility for longer than two weeks.

When interrogators are using Appendix M measures, the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, Gen.James Clapper (Ret.) is the man on the hook.

I think Ambinder has just not clearly stated the sleep deprivation restrictions (which require 4 hours of sleep in a 24-hour period, but which would therefore allow for 40 hour periods of consecutive sleep deprivation). And the limits in Appendix M make it clear that environmental manipulation (with noise, heat, cold, or even water) is still permitted, just not excessive amounts of it.

Care should be taken to protect the detainee from exposure (in accordance with all appropriate standards addressing excessive or inadequate environmental conditions) to—

− Excessive noise.

− Excessive dampness.

− Excessive or inadequate heat, light, or ventilation.

− Inadequate bedding and blankets.

− Interrogation activity leadership will periodically monitor the application of this technique.

Use of separation must not preclude the detainee getting four hours of continuous sleep every 24 hours.

Oversight should account for moving a detainee from one environment to another (thus a different location) or arrangements to modify the environment within the same location in accordance with the approved interrogation plan.

Which would be utterly consistent with BBC’s report that detainees there were subject to cold cells, constant light, and sleep deprivation.

There are a lot of interesting details in Marc’s piece. But perhaps the most amusing is the Orwellian non-denial denial from DOD’s spokesperson, Brian Whitman:

“DoD does operate some temporary screening detention facilities which are classified to preserve operational security; however, both the [Red Cross] and the host nation have knowledge of these facilities,” said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesperson. Read more

DOD’s Empty Vessel for Torture Authorization

When I asked whether DOD had any authorization for torture after 2004, Jeff Kaye reminded me we just recently saw one new aspect of authorization: an April 2006 Steven Bradbury Opinion authorizing Appendix M of the new version of the Army Field Manual released on September 6, 2006. (As Jeff and Matthew Alexander have shown, Appendix M, which remains in place, basically incorporates a number of techniques amounting to torture right into the AFM.) While the 2006 Bradbury memo doesn’t explain what DOD was doing between 2004 and 2006, the memo basically serves to turn Appendix M into an empty vessel into which DOD can throw anything it wants and have it pre-approved.

Make sure the client never sees the caveats

Let’s start with the structure of the memo: note to whom it is addressed?

Nobody.

Rather, this is a Memorandum for the Files. It serves as a document internal to OLC, rather than a document explaining factual assumptions, legal reasoning, and specific limits to the client. So how does the client know the result of the memo? The first paragraph of this memo explains,

The Department of Defense (“DOD”) has asked us to review for form and legality the revised drafts of the Army Field Manual 2-22.3 (“Human Intelligence Collector Operations”), Appendix M of FM 2-22.3 (“Restricted Interrogations Techniques”), and the Policy Directive regarding DOD’s Detainee Program. By letter sent today to the General Counsel of DOD, we advised that these documents are consistent with the requirements of law, in particular with the requirements of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 [citation removed]. This memorandum explains that conclusion.

In other words, Bradbury did tell Jim Haynes the result of his review: that the Appendix passed legal muster. But it appears that Bradbury did not send this memo (the memo was finalized after the letter had already been sent). Indeed, Bradbury suggests that he did little more than send a letter saying, “The new Army Field Manual, Appendix M, and the associated Directive are legal under the Detainee Treatment Act.”

Love, Stevie, kthxby.

Now, Bradbury does put limits on his judgment that Appendix M was legal. He spends what appears to be six paragraphs describing the techniques he says were part of Appendix M. Those paragraphs place limits on the techniques (for example, they prohibit an interrogator from leading a detainee to believe the interrogator was a member of the Red Cross). He references restrictive language in specific paragraphs of the AFM itself. He includes assumptions about whom DOD would use these techniques with.

But if DOD never saw this memo–and there’s no indication they did–then his approval would be utterly divorced from any of the restrictions he had placed on that approval.

Approve a document and then make changes to it

Speaking of all those references to specific paragraphs of Appendix M, note that Bradbury wrote this memo on April 13, 2006. Appendix M was not finalized and released until September 6, 2006. And the contents of Appendix M changed significantly between the time Bradbury wrote his approval letter and the time the Appendix was put into effect five months latter. (See this article from Jeff for a review of the debates in the interim period.) Read more