Gonzales's torture memo. A man to trust?

washingtonpost.com reports that President Bush's nominee to head the Justice Department in his second term, White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales, pledged today to preserve civil liberties as the nation wages war on terrorism and vowed to aggressively pursue those responsible for the abuse of U.S. held prisoners. Link

The source of much skepticism regarding this pledge is Gonnzales's memo outlining how to avoid violating U.S. and international terror statutes while interrogating prisoners. The Washington Post has conveniently made available the memo in full - here is the pdf .

Americans may be concerned that this man, expert in lies and doublespeak, is most likely to become their new head of the Justice Department. See a few examples below:


....section 2340A proscribes acts inflicting, and that are specifically intended to inflict, severe pain or suffering whether mental or physical. Those acts must be of extreme nature to rise to the level of torture within the meaning of Section 2340A....

We further conclude that certain acts may be cruel, inhuman, or degrading , but still not produce pain and suffering of the requisite intencity to fall within Section 2340A's proscription against torture.

...a threat that someday the prisoner might be killed would not suffice. Instead, subjecting a prisoner to mock executions or playing Russian roulette with him would.......

Each component of the definition emphasizes that torture is not the mere infliction of pain or suffering on another

...........the victim must experience intense pain or suffering of the kind that is equivalent to the pain that would be associated with serious physical injury so severe that death, organ failure or permanant damage resulting in the loss of a significant body function [occurs]......