Bush Rejected Legal, Humane Torture Alternative?

(11 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Crossposted from Antemedius

RawStory is reporting this morning that “The Bush administration was given clear and unequivocal advice encouraging a detainee interrogation system that followed humane practices that adhered to US and international law…”

“A detailed memorandum authored by a counselor to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in 2005 also reveals that the Bush Administration was offered a comprehensive alternative to its use of torture techniques. The author, Rice deputy Philip Zelikow (along with then-acting deputy secretary of defense Gordon England), asserted that the adoption of a clear and humane approach to interrogation would pay dividends for the US in the years to come.”

The Zelikow/England draft memo (.PDF)  stamped “Sensitive But Unclassified” was apparently written in June 2005, and was published May 14, 2009 in a post by Steven Aftergood at Secrecy News, a Federation of American Scientists project website.

John Byrne writes in the RawStory article this morning that:

Zelikow acknowledged an argument frequently promulgated by former Vice President Dick Cheney – that the interrogation of detainees could save thousands of lives. But he argued that humane treatment was the only right course for the United States.

“Some [terrorist suspects] have information that may save lives, perhaps even thousands of lives,” Zelikow wrote. “They do not fit readily into any existing system of criminal or military justice. And, while balancing the danger these individuals may present, they must be treated humanely, consistent with our values and the values of the free world.”

Zelikow and England argued – conscious of the techniques that the Bush administration had already adopted and in an apparent snipe at then-approved standards endorsing torture – that such a program must “pass muster for years to come under American law and relevant standards of international law,” and “give workable clear and unambiguous guidelines for the professional and humane conduct expected from those who will operate the system.”

And, they said, whether a prisoner was caught in any number of countries abroad, “the treatment of a prisoner should be built on a foundation of common values and basic standards – a system that is reasonably interoperable.”

…

In the memo released Thursday, the two Bush officials said they believed that the US should effectively give terrorist detainees the rights enumerated under the Geneva Conventions.

In all capital letters, they wrote: “WE ARE NOT SAYING THAT THESE DETAINEES ARE NECESSARILY ENTITLED TO THIS STATUS. TO BE CLEAR: WE ARE GIVING THEM A TEMPORARY STATUS THEY DO NOT DESERVE. BUT WE ARE NOT DOING THIS FOR THEM. WE ARE DOING IT FOR US.”

…

Perhaps most telling was a line penned midway through the memo – a prognostication that has proven eerily true.

“If the US acts as if it has something to hide,” the officials wrote, “Americans and the world will assume that it does.”