Administration Lacks Candor on Torture Documents

Earlier this week, the White House released a selection of documents that it claims shows the administration's commitment to the humane treatment of detainees in the global war on terrorism. The documents, however, confirm the administration's elaborate legalistic parsing on the meaning of torture and show its tacit approval of illegal and immoral interrogation techniques.

• The Bush administration paid lip service to the humane treatment of prisoners under U.S. custody. The administration's February 2002 memo limits humane treatment of detainees "to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity." Yet, the "military necessity" exception is so broad and vague it effectively allows the Geneva conventions to be ignored at will. The memo also says the United States should extend these values even to "those who are not legally entitled to such treatment." But as the New York Times reports, the White House was unwilling or unable to say "what part of American law denies humane treatment to anyone."
• The administration must release all documents related to its decisions and authorization of treatment of detainees. As Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) noted after the release of the documents, the White House provided "only 3 of the 23 documents that Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee requested and tried to subpoena last week, and of those 3 documents, 2 were already available worldwide on the Internet."
• President Bush must prove to the world through his words and actions that the United States does not condone torture of anyone, anywhere, at anytime, for any reason. The moral authority of the United States has been severely compromised over the past few months. The president must now do everything in his power to provide full transparency and accountability – even for those at the highest levels of the military and government – for the deplorable actions perpetrated in our name.

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