Monday
May182009
Revealed: Zelikow Memorandum Says Torture is not OK (Unless It's Effective)
Monday, May 18, 2009 at 8:20
Torture: More on the CIA-Military, Guantanamo-Iraq Link
Torture: The Hidden Photos Emerge
Video and Transcript: Bush Official Zelikow Condemns Torture Programmes
Last week we reported on the testimony to Congress of Philip Zelikow (pictured), the former State Department officer, on the "enhanced interrogation" programmes of the Bush Administration: "The administration was reserving the right to inflict treatment that might violate the so-called 'CID' standard...'cruel, inhuman, or degrading'."
In that testimony, and in other public statements, Zelikow referred to "an unclassified paper prepared with [State Department Legal Adviser John] Bellinger’s help and circulated in July 2005". The memorandum had not been made public, but the Federation of American Scientists has now obtained a copy.
Zelikow and Bellinger argue, "We do not adopt legal standards in our behavior as a favor to terrorists. We do it for ourselves, and to be able to exemplify the values that distinguish us from the terrorists." However, their recommendations are far from a prohibition of "enhanced interrogation", merely a search for whether it can effectively regulated and administered.
The two officials suggest that the Government "apply Geneva standards for civilian detainees under the law of war only to detainees held in DOD [Department of Defense] facilities" In other words, detainees held by the CIA in secret sites remain outside the Geneva Convention, although the US should "set an appropriate time period during which detainees can be held without disclosing that they are in US custody".
Then they offer their big conclusion: US intelligence services can decide whether torture, and the violation of international law, is necessary:
The issue in other words --- the only issue --- is effectiveness.
Torture: The Hidden Photos Emerge
Video and Transcript: Bush Official Zelikow Condemns Torture Programmes
Last week we reported on the testimony to Congress of Philip Zelikow (pictured), the former State Department officer, on the "enhanced interrogation" programmes of the Bush Administration: "The administration was reserving the right to inflict treatment that might violate the so-called 'CID' standard...'cruel, inhuman, or degrading'."In that testimony, and in other public statements, Zelikow referred to "an unclassified paper prepared with [State Department Legal Adviser John] Bellinger’s help and circulated in July 2005". The memorandum had not been made public, but the Federation of American Scientists has now obtained a copy.
Zelikow and Bellinger argue, "We do not adopt legal standards in our behavior as a favor to terrorists. We do it for ourselves, and to be able to exemplify the values that distinguish us from the terrorists." However, their recommendations are far from a prohibition of "enhanced interrogation", merely a search for whether it can effectively regulated and administered.
The two officials suggest that the Government "apply Geneva standards for civilian detainees under the law of war only to detainees held in DOD [Department of Defense] facilities" In other words, detainees held by the CIA in secret sites remain outside the Geneva Convention, although the US should "set an appropriate time period during which detainees can be held without disclosing that they are in US custody".
Then they offer their big conclusion: US intelligence services can decide whether torture, and the violation of international law, is necessary:
Ask the DNI [Director of National Intelligence] whether, based on years of experience now accumulated worldwide and in Iraq, the U.S. can achieve its intelligence objectives while treating detainees humanely, as that term is defined under minimum international standards. Or, alternatively, ask whether experience shows it is necessary, in order to achieve intelligence objectives, to have the right to use practices regarded as cruel, inhuman, and degrading.
The issue in other words --- the only issue --- is effectiveness.
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