Report: Gonzo Ousted Torture Critic, Then Promised Him USA Gig To Placate Him

[kpete]

Former AG Accused of Playing Politics with Justice
Exclusive: Critic of Torture Policy Assured Job as US Attorney
By JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG and ARIANE DE VOGUE
June 19, 2008

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, now under investigation for allegedly politicizing the Justice Department, ousted a top lawyer for failing to adopt the administration's position on torture and then promised him a position as a U.S. attorney to placate him, highly placed sources tell ABC News.

Gonzales, who was just taking over as attorney general, asked Justice Department lawyer Daniel Levin to leave in early 2005, shortly after Levin wrote a legal opinion that declared "torture is abhorrent" and limited the administration's use of harsh interrogation techniques.

At the time, Levin was in the middle of drafting a second, critical memo that analyzed the legality of specific interrogation techniques, like waterboarding.

Gonzales, however, was concerned about how it would be perceived if Levin were ousted immediately after issuing the opinion — and just before he finished another — so he offered Levin a less significant job outside the Department of Justice at the National Security Council, sources tell ABC News.

more at:
http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=5202405&page=1

[libnnc]

1. motherfucker

T O R T U R E





Gen. Taguba: Bush Administration Committed War Crimes

The Army general who first investigated the abuse at Abu Ghraib has accused the Bush administration of committing war crimes. Retired Major General Antonio Taguba made the comment in a new report about US torture practices. Taguba wrote, “The commander in chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture.” Taguba went on to say, “The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.” <snip>

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/6/19/headlines#1





Thursday, June 19, 2008
The Great Torture Scandal

McClatchy and other reporters are abruptly pulling the curtain away from the Bush team's illegal practices in arresting people arbitrarily, declining to offer proof that they were guilty of anything, detaining them indefinitely without trial or charges, and deliberately torturing them to the extent of leaving long-term scars and disabilities. The torture practices originated not with lower-level officers but with Donald Rumsfeld and others in Bush's inner circle, who then later blamed lower-level officials for developing the ideas that Rumsfeld ordered them to develop. Nothing they have done has survived a court challenge where one has been permitted.<snip>

http://www.juancole.com/2008/06/great-torture-scandal.html





A Senate investigation has concluded that top Pentagon officials began assembling lists of harsh interrogation techniques in the summer of 2002 for use on detainees at Guantanamo Bay and that those officials later cited memos from field commanders to suggest that the proposals originated far down the chain of command, according to congressional sources briefed on the findings.<snip>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/16/AR2008061602779.html

[libnnc]

2. kick

[malaise]

3. Sweet

K & R

[KoKo]

4. Kick!