Posted on: Thursday, January 6, 2005

EDITORIAL
Bush torture policy: Harm's already done

The Bush administration has now produced a new definition of torture, one more in keeping with American and international law.

But we're only beginning to learn the extent of the damage that has been done.

The Justice Department's earlier memo, which suggested that the Geneva Conventions for prisoners of war were "obsolete" and even "quaint," was approved by Bush's nominee for attorney general, Alberto Gonzales.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing today on the nomination.

Democrats led by Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy say they will ask Gonzales to explain his role in drafting policies that they say spawned the prisoner abuse scandal at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Gonzales' memo said the Geneva Conventions don't cover combatants captured in Afghanistan or al-Qaida operatives seized anywhere in the world after Sept. 11, 2001. Since then, hundreds of prisoners have been locked up without access to their lawyers or their families or the Red Cross, with no reason to hope for release — ever.

The Justice Department still argues that certain classes of these prisoners can be held for life without a hearing.

And the story is slowly emerging that many of these detainees were tortured.

Further, there has been no accounting for prisoners held in foreign countries by the CIA or those turned over to foreign custody, where ongoing torture may still be an issue.

A dozen former military officers, including retired Army Gen. John Shalikashvili, are opposing the Gonzales nomination because of his role in the suspension of Geneva Conventions for detainees.

They oppose this approach because it's "the first step on a slippery slope that compromises the rule of law in this country," said retired Marine Gen. Joseph P. Hoar, former commander of the U.S. Central Command.

In addition, U.S. failure to adhere to the Geneva Conventions in any way opens the possibility that American troops who become captive will also lose those protections.

"This isn't the last war we are going to fight," said retired Rear Admiral John D. Hutson, former judge advocate general of the Navy. "Once you say the Geneva Conventions are quaint and obsolete, you can't undo that."

The new definition of torture quietly released by the Justice Department on New Year's Eve largely dismisses the Gonzales memo.

Still, the administration's recognition of the need to retreat in itself casts doubt on the fitness of Gonzales, who in practice has condoned the sort of atrocious acts the United States has always condemned.