The Justice Department has published a revised and expansive definition
of acts that constitute torture under domestic and international law,
overtly repudiating one of the most criticized policy memorandums
drafted during President Bush's first term. In a statement published on
the department's website late Thursday, the head of its Office of Legal
Counsel declares that ''torture is abhorrent both to American law and
values and international norms." The statement goes on to reject a
previous statement that only ''organ failure, impairment of bodily
function, or even death" constitute torture punishable by law. That
earlier definition of torture figured prominently in complaints by
Democrats and human rights groups about White House counsel Alberto
Gonzales, who oversaw its creation and is Bush's nominee to become
attorney general for the second term. The new memo's public release
came a week before the start of Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on
Gonzales's nomination. The new document also omits two assertions made
in an earlier version: that Bush, as a wartime chief executive, had the
authority to permit acts barred by US laws against torture, and that US
personnel following executive orders involving torture had legal
defenses against criminal liability. The new memo states that torture
violates US and international law. The administration's legal document
defining torture was first written in 2002, before the Iraqi prison
abuse scandal became public. [more]
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