The Washington Post’s editorial on the torture memos seems to me to strike the right balance. (Just compare it to the Bush-can’t-win screed at the NYT.) It is indeed a relief to see that the president ruled out anything that violated Geneva principles, and that the defense secretary reversed, after a month, the permissibility of a variety of techniques that he previously sanctioned in Guantanamo. But there’s the rub:
The documents confirm that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld approved a number of harsh interrogation techniques for use in Guantanamo in December 2002, including hooding, requiring nudity, placing prisoners in stress positions and using dogs. After military lawyers objected that these violated international law, Mr. Rumsfeld suspended their use a month later. But all these techniques, as well as the restricted practices now approved for Guantanamo, appeared in an interrogation policy issued for Iraq by command of Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez in September 2003. Nearly word for word, the harsh methods detailed in memos signed by Mr. Rumsfeld — which even administration lawyers considered violations of the Geneva Conventions — were then distributed to interrogators at Abu Ghraib. The procedures in turn could be read to cover much of what is seen in the photographs that have scandalized the world. How did this spread of improper and illegal practices occur?
That is what we will find out.
The Dish 