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No Standards, No Accountability

Then White House Counsel and now Attorney General of the United States Alberto Gonzales was one who recognized the potential for prosecution under 18 USC Sec. 2441—a view he expressed in a January 25, 2002 memo to President Bush, one of many on this subject that went between the White House, the Justice Department, the CIA, and the civilian leadership of the Pentagon. These memos attempted to establish a rationale permitting abusive and degrading treatment, including torture, by creating “exempt” categories for detainees and “exempt” areas in which prisons could be built and unregulated interrogations conducted. the Supreme Court invalidated most of the administration’s“no-standards” interrogation policy. But rather than bring policy—andpractice—into line with the international conventions that the UnitedStates had observed up to September 11, 2001, the administration is nowtrying to absolve itself ex post facto. It is pressuring Congress topass legislation that retroactively shields from possible prosecutionanyone who authorized or encouraged the use of coercion duringinterrogations. The new “standard” for interrogation, according to media reports, wouldallow methods that do not “shock the conscience.” Such a standard isnot conducive to the rule of law. One wonders if this is the equivalentof the military’s “shock and awe” bombing campaign against Iraq inMarch 2003. That, too, was an attempt to short-circuit provenprocedures and operational standards. Its aftermath has been equallydevastating to the principle of accountability so vital to democracies.