American Nuremberg by Rebecca Gordon

Author:Rebecca Gordon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hot Books
Published: 2016-03-01T05:00:00+00:00

This was just the beginning of Muller’s quest to ensure that higher-ups would share any blame that came the CIA’s way. Next, Muller reported that he had discussed the matter with John Rizzo, who served as the CIA’s acting general counsel until Muller took over. Rizzo assured Muller that “CIA use of interrogation techniques was authorized by the President [emphasis added].” In December 2002, Muller’s memo continued, he had several conversations with John Yoo of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, who assured him that Bush’s February 2002 memo did not apply to the CIA. In fact, Muller wrote, “Yoo stated that the language of the memorandum had been deliberately limited [emphasis added] to be binding only on ‘the Armed Forces’ which did not include the CIA.” Yoo offered to send Muller “a written opinion to that effect.” Muller had received a draft, but the final opinion was not yet in his hands when he wrote his report. Yoo further assured Muller that not only did the CIA’s methods not violate the US law against torture (Section §2340), but they did not violate any other US law. It’s likely that Yoo was thinking specifically of the 1996 War Crimes Act, although Muller’s memo didn’t say so.

In November 2002, Muller’s memo went on, the Department of Defense handed over a prisoner to the CIA for interrogation, and asked CIA director Tenet to promise to return the prisoner when the agency was done with him. The DOD reminded Tenet of the president’s memo requiring the armed forces to guarantee “humane treatment” of prisoners. But Muller sought reassurance from Jim Haynes, the DOD’s general legal counsel, that while the prisoner was in CIA hands, there was no requirement to treat him humanely. Haynes reiterated what Yoo had told Muller before, that the president’s memo only concerned the armed forces and did not apply to the CIA.

Muller recorded that on January 13, 2003, he attended a meeting at Alberto Gonzales’s office—then serving as general counsel to the White House—along with David Addington, John Yoo, and Jim Haynes. The meeting was apparently convened to discuss a letter about detainee treatment that the DOD had received from Human Rights Watch. This time it was Addington and Haynes who confirmed that only the armed forces were legally required to treat detainees humanely.

Three days later, Muller attended a meeting with Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Jim Haynes, Colin Powell, and Dick Cheney. Muller pointed out to Rice that the CIA had been authorized to do things that were inconsistent with “what at least some in the international community might expect in light of the Administration’s public statements about ‘humane treatment’ of detainees.”

As Muller’s memo makes clear, the CIA had now received confirmation from the highest officials in the White House, the vice president’s office, the National Security Council, the State Department, and the Department of Defense that it could do whatever it wanted with the prisoners it was holding. Nevertheless, half a year later, the CIA was again

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.