Durbin to Gonzo: Is Waterboarding Legal or Not?

From TPM:


It's hard to keep track of every distinct controversy sparked by Alberto Gonzales's testimony last week to the Senate Judiciary Committee, but Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) is trying to make sure one particular element of scandal doesn't fall by the wayside.


In response to questioning by Durbin and Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), Gonzales said it was "not so clear" that five interrogration techniques -- painful stress positions, use of dogs in interrogation, nudity, mock execution, and the infamous waterboarding -- were ruled out by President Bush's recent executive order on CIA interrogations. Today, Durbin sent a letter to Gonzales asking him to make sure that's really what he meant to say. The letter uses a somewhat confusing formulation about whether the administration thinks the use of such techniques on U.S. personnel is legal, but that's simply a way of drawing out whether the Bush administration has created a loophole in its interpretation of the Geneva Conventions.