As Report Shows Bybee's Torture Culpability, Conyers Says: 'We're Coming After These Guys' (HuffPo)

[jefferson_dem]

As Report Shows Bybee's Torture Culpability, Conyers Says: 'We're Coming After These Guys'

Bush administration attorney Jay Bybee, now a judge on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals serving a lifetime appointment, crafted legal justifications for torture after intelligence officials began to adapt techniques already deemed illegal by U.S. and international law, according to a report released Tuesday evening by the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The 232-page report leaves no doubt that the interrogation techniques were torture and were long known to be illegal. The Bush administration's program of torture was "reverse engineered," in the words of Richard Shiffrin, the general counsel for intelligence for the Department of Defense in 2002, from communist Chinese techniques designed to elicit false confessions. In that respect, the program worked well, as tortured detainees told officials whatever they could think of and sent CIA agents chasing bogus tips around the globe, according to press reports.

The program that the torture was developed from was known as Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape (SERE). The purpose of SERE was to teach American soldiers to resist torture - not to establish a set of practices to torture detainees.

SERE was run by the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA). One JPRA instructor told the committee that the set of techniques in the program, such as waterboarding, were "based on illegal exploitation...of prisoners over the last 50 years."

On August 1, 2002, Bybee signed two memos that purported to justify the torture, arguing that for it to be torture it "must inflict pain that is difficult to endure," using as examples "serious physical injury, such as organ failure." His second memo, released after the report was finished, justified specific acts of torture that had been deemed illegal for the past 50 years by U.S. and international law. The report was embargoed until Tuesday night.

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/21/as-report-shows-bybees-to_n_189815.html

[BlooInBloo]

1. So sayeth Mr. Sternly Worded Letter.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

2. Conyers is just like the old guy you want to take the car keys away from

He means well. He's done a good job for a long time. But he just doesn't have it in him anymore. I'm sorry, but that's the truth. He's already mowed down a few mailboxes and he forgot where he put the subpoenas.

[Thrill]

3. He talks a big game. What happened to his 'We're closing in on Rove'

He's so full of crap

[AtomicKitten]

4. Uh huh. n/t

[tularetom]

5. I'll believe it when I see it

Tonight I heard Sen Leahy (who by the way voted to confirm him) talking tough about Bybee - "He should do the honorable thing and resign"

Fat fuckin chance of that happening - are Conyers and Leahy that naive or just fuckin stoopid?