"But Mr. Mora's campaign against what he viewed as an official policy of cruel treatment, detailed in a memorandum he wrote in July 2004 and recounted in an article in the Feb. 27 issue of The New Yorker magazine, made public yesterday, underscored again how contrary views were often brushed aside in administration debates on the subject." "Even if one wanted to authorize the U.S. military to conduct coercive interrogations, as was the case in Guantánamo, how could one do so without profoundly altering its core values and character?"
Apparently quite easily. A link to Mora's memo is after the article text. David Bier http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/20/politics/20mora.html February 20, 2006 Senior Lawyer at Pentagon Broke Ranks on Detainees By TIM GOLDEN One of the Pentagon's top civilian lawyers repeatedly challenged the Bush administration's policy on the coercive interrogation of terror suspects, arguing that such practices violated the law, verged on torture and could ultimately expose senior officials to prosecution, a newly disclosed document shows. The lawyer, Alberto J. Mora, a political appointee who retired Dec. 31 after more than four years as general counsel of the Navy, was one of many dissenters inside the Pentagon. Senior uniformed lawyers in all the military services also objected sharply to the interrogation policy, according to internal documents declassified last year. But Mr. Mora's campaign against what he viewed as an official policy of cruel treatment, detailed in a memorandum he wrote in July 2004 and recounted in an article in the Feb. 27 issue of The New Yorker magazine, made public yesterday, underscored again how contrary views were often brushed aside in administration debates on the subject. "Even if one wanted to authorize the U.S. military to conduct coercive interrogations, as was the case in Guantánamo, how could one do so without profoundly altering its core values and character?" Mr. Mora asked the Pentagon's chief lawyer, William J. Haynes II, according to the memorandum. A Pentagon spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Tracy O'Grady-Walsh, declined to comment late yesterday on specific assertions in Mr. Mora's memorandum. "Detainee operations and interrogation policies have been scrutinized under a microscope, from all different angles," she said. "It was found that it was not a Department of Defense policy to encourage or condone torture." In interviews, current and former Defense Department officials said that part of what was striking about Mr. Mora's forceful role in the internal debates was how out of character it seemed: a loyal Republican, he was known as a supporter of President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the fight against terrorism. "He's an extremely well-spoken, almost elegant guy," the former director of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, David L. Brandt, who first came to Mr. Mora with concerns about the interrogation methods, said in an interview last week. "He's not a door-kicker." Mr. Mora is also known for generally avoiding public attention. Reached by telephone yesterday, he declined to comment further on his memorandum. Mr. Mora prepared the 22-page memorandum for a Defense Department review of interrogation operations that was conducted by Vice Adm. Albert T. Church III, after the scandal involving treatment of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The document focused on Mr. Mora's successful opposition to the coercive techniques that Mr. Rumsfeld approved for interrogators at Guantánamo Bay on Dec. 2, 2002, and Mr. Mora's subsequent, failed effort to influence the legal discussions that led to new methods approved by Mr. Rumsfeld the following April. Mr. Mora took up the issue after Mr. Brandt came to him on Dec. 17, 2002, to relay the concerns of Navy criminal agents at Guantánamo that some detainees there were being subjected to "physical abuse and degrading treatment" by interrogators. Acting with the support of Gordon R. England, who was then secretary of the Navy and is now Mr. Rumsfeld's deputy, Mr. Mora took his concerns to Mr. Haynes, the Defense Department's general counsel. "In my view, some of the authorized interrogation techniques could rise to the level of torture, although the intent surely had not been to do so," Mr. Mora wrote. After trying to rally other senior officials to his position, Mr. Mora met again with Mr. Haynes on Jan. 10, 2003. He argued his case even more forcefully, raising the possibility that senior officials could be prosecuted for authorizing abusive conduct, and asking: "Had we jettisoned our human rights policies?" Still, Mr. Mora wrote, it was only when he warned Mr. Haynes on Jan. 15 that he was planning to issue a formal memorandum on his opposition to the methods delivering a draft to Mr. Haynes's office that Mr. Rumsfeld suddenly retracted the techniques. In a break from standard practice, former Pentagon lawyers said, the final draft of the report on interrogation techniques was not circulated to most of the lawyers, including Mr. Mora, who had contributed to it. Several of them said they learned that a final version had been issued only after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke. ---- RELATED LINK: "Statement for the Record: Office of General Counsel Involvement in Interrogation Issues." Read the document (PDF): http://www.newyorker.com/images/pdfs/moramemo.pdf -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
