Secret memo reveals Bush was given humane, legal alternative to harsh interrogation

The memo was published Thursday at Secrecy News.You can be read here in PDF form.

Former State Department Counselor Philip Zelikow described his efforts in 2005-6 to advance a standard that would effectively prohibit “cruel, inhuman, and degrading” treatment of detainees, a standard to which, in theory, the United States was already committed. But the practice was something different, he said.

“The U.S. government adopted an unprecedented program of cooly calculated dehumanizing abuse and physical torment to extract information,” Mr. Zelikow testified (pdf). “This was a mistake, perhaps a disastrous one. It was a collective failure, in which a number of officials and members of Congress (and staffers), of both parties played a part, endorsing a CIA program of physical coercion even after the McCain amendment was passed and after the Hamdan decision. Precisely because this was a collective failure it is all the more important to comprehend it, and learn from it.”Mr. Zelikow cited two noteworthy official documents in his testimony, though these were not published on the Judiciary Committee web site. Copies were obtained by Secrecy News.

A June 2005 memorandum (pdf) prepared by Mr. Zelikow and Gordon R. England, the acting deputy secretary of defense, proposed a comprehensive approach to detention, interrogation and prosecution of suspected terrorists, that the authors said would be compatible with existing legal standards. But their approach was rejected by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Mr. Zelikow recalled in his testimony.

In the memo and 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.”

“This interim approach also is one that civilian courts are more likely to understand,” they continued. “This interim approach is also one that Americans and the world are more likely to understand and accept as reasonable.”