McClatchy Gets Hold Of-3 More YOO Memos-Reveal BUSHCO'S (?) Thinking On Iraqi War

[kpete]

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/01/07/iraq-war-memos-released-working-thread/
Iraq War Memos Released: Working Thread
By: emptywheel Wednesday January 7, 2009 8:36 am


McClatchy's Marisa Taylor has gotten a hold of three more Yoo memos--and one Jack Goldsmith memo--that reveal the Administration's thinking on the Iraq War.

They are:

October 23, 2002: Bush has authority to declare war against Iraq because his Daddy did

November 8, 2002: UN 1441 doesn't prevent Bush from going to war outside the terms of 1441

December 7, 2002: If Scooter Libby claims the Iraqis lied on their WMD declaration, Bush can declare war

March 18, 2004: If the US ships Iraqis outside of Iraq, then they can torture them (Jack Goldsmith's opinion)

January 06, 2009
Yoo and Bybee war memos revealed

Marisa Taylor of McClatchy's D.C. bureau reports:

Former Justice Department attorneys John Yoo and Jay Bybee are known for their memos on torture, but little was known about their role in the lead-up to war with Iraq. Until now.

A string of previously secret memos recently released to the Senate Judiciary Committee by the Justice Department reveals Yoo's and Bybee's part in crafting the controversial legal justification for going to war.

In a memo dated Oct. 23, 2002, Bybee argues that President Bush "possesses constitutional authority for ordering the use of force against Iraq to protect our national interests." In fact, he says, the president never lost the power to declare war on Iraq because Congress gave it to the president's father in 1991.

Yoo supplements those arguments in two other memos dated November 8, 2002 and December 7, 2002. He concluded that the could argue that Iraq committed a “material breach” of a United Nations Security Council Resolution, an assertion that would become one of the administration’s main justifications for going to war. In one lengthy section, Yoo expounds on the meaning of the word “and” and concludes that it should not be construed as a conjunction.

(Please Read The WHOLE Thing!!!!) more at:
http://washingtonbureau.typepad.com/law/2009/01/yoo-and-bybee-war-memos-revealed-1.html

[Canuckistanian]

1. OK, I'll do it. K&R

This is big.

[jaxx]

2. And to think Yoo is trying to tell Obama how to act.

They ought to be real worried about now.

[Canuckistanian]

3. Really? Got a link?

I thought Yoo was trying to keep a low profile these days.

[jaxx]

7. Yoo and Bolton two peas in a pod.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/opinion/05bolton.html?_r=3

[Canuckistanian]

11. Wow, an Op-Ed by BOTH Yoo and Bolton

That's DOUBLE the wingnuttiness for the same price.

And I get the gist of the article. They want to make sure that international treaty agreements get to the Senate where only a supermajority of Senate votes can pass things like declarations of war or Kyoto.

That way, NOTHING gets passed.

[jimshoes]

4. Can these persons be stripped of their citizenship?

As an American I am embarassed that these people can also call themselves Americans.:mad:

[pleah]

5. K&R

[Solly Mack]

6. K&R

[NashVegas]

8. "If It's Raining On Sunday ..."

Geeez.

[struggle4progress]

9. Bybee doesn't belong on the federal bench

[stillcool]

10. Gosh..it all seems so ho-hum now..

there are no laws that can not be broken. There are no laws that can not be written, to make what is illegal for most, legal for some. That's our "Justice" Department.

[Pastiche423]

12. K&R!

[Senator]

13. Still Time To Impeach For Torture (and thus save the Obama admin)

Simply kicking sand over the big stinking pile in our National Sandbox is exactly what it seems -- coverup.

Everyone who wants to "just move forward," or "put this all behind us," or worse yet "RESTORE the rule of law and our moral standing" is simply aiding and abetting war criminality after the fact. Trying not to think about it doesn't make it go away.

Anyone seeking to "restore" something, is really rationalizing failure to enforce.

Anyone proposing a "better" solution (always) in the future, is really rationalizing failure to abide by our current treaty obligations.

Anyone who'd feel uncomfortable explaining their inaction to the families of the innocent detainees is a torturer in spirit. And if they are a US Gov't official, are legally liable for that crime/failure.

Impeachment remains our ONLY moral, patriotic option.

--

[glinda]

16. A trial and jailing is the right thing to do.

[Senator]

20. Hardly. It is merely the latest "thing somebody else should do later."

The "right thing to do" would have been to impeach/object the minute the atrocities/crimes became known. The regime never denied the fact of them. In fact, they claimed the authority to do all of it and worse. All that was ever required of DC-Dems was a vote of "No."

Failure to impeach was ongoing tacit approval of all of it and may well preclude any prosecutions. I would find it hard to convict in the face of this level of DC-Dem/Congressional approval.

While it may not be true that "if the president does it, it is not a crime," it may well be true that "if the president does it and congress fails to impeach/object, it is neither a crime nor an impeachable offense."

Inaction also has consequences. Big ones.

---

[Independent_Liberal]

22. Keep talking impeachment Senator.

I'm urging folks to do the same. There's still time to impeach. Any argument to the contrary is silly defeatist babble.

Just threaten it and we could get a quick 1-2-3-4 scenario like this in the final week:

1. Cheney resigns for "health reasons."
2. Bush appoints Condoleeza VP and the Senate confirms her.
3. Bush resigns.
4. Condi takes over and oversees the transition for the final couple days.

[Senator]

26. Yes, even doing it the last day would save Obama...

...from formally becoming President Torture II -- albeit via Sin of Omission.

It might not do much for his personal, crippled soul or those of the rest of the "look the other way" crowd inside the beltway. But it would be an immeasurable benefit to our once-great nation.

It might save us from generations of being the "New Good Germans."

Plus, it would go a long way toward easing our economic crisis. People of good will simply don't like to trade with war criminals, if they can help it.

---

[merh]

14. K&R

:kick:

[SpiralHawk]

15. REPUBLICON 'family values' are soooo twisted and anti-American

What a bunch of crooks and liars the republicons are...no wonder Americans are turning their backs on them and their perverted, hypocritical 'family values' - war, profiteering, deviancy, corruption, torture, etc. etc. ad nauseum...

[NewJeffCT]

17. So, by using their 12/7/02 logic

If Leon Panetta claims George W. Bush personally tortured people, we can throw Bush in jail for life?

[KamaAina]

18. They oughta put those on YooTube

:P

[KamaAina]

19. "That depends on what the meaning of the word 'and' is"

:eyes:

[proud progressive]

21. half of this numb-nuts nation consider these guys HEROES!

[mod mom]

23. I thought Jack Goldsmith was one of the good guys.

[mod mom]

24. Here's why I thought that (Goldsmith threatens to resign):

Goldsmith: Cheney Lawyer Is Frothing Lunatic
By Spencer Ackerman - September 4, 2007, 10:26AM
If there's a villain in Jack Goldsmith'saccount of his time in the Justice Department, it's David Addington, Dick Cheney's legal alter ego. Addington, who became the vice president's chief of staff after Scooter Libby resigned following his indictment, served as Cheney's eyes and ears in the legal battles within the administration over warrantless surveillance, coercive interrogations and indefinite detentions. His style of argument, as recounted by Goldsmith, isn't exactly a subtle one.

-snip




Again and again the two lawyers clashed. In 2004, Goldsmith threatened to resign unless the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel formally repudiated an August 2002 memo justifying torture. Resignation would have meant intensifying a very public controversy over interrogations in the middle of an election year. Addington viewed Goldsmith, who had withdrawn a number of over-broad opinions on wartime authority during his tenure at OLC, as unconscionably willing to sacrifice national security out of legal squeamishness. He confronted Goldsmith in Gonzales's White House office:

out of his jacket pocket a 3-by-5 card that listed the withdrawn opinions. “Since you’ve withdrawn so many legal opinions that the president and others have been relying on,” Addington said, according to Goldsmith, “we need you to ... let us know which ones you still stand by.”
Ultimately Goldsmith prevailed. The OLC rescinded the memo in December 2004. But it says a lot that Goldsmith is out of government, about to publish a book and testify to the Senate, and Addington has only ascended in the veep's office.

-snip

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/004060.php

[mod mom]

25. I retract my comment after reading McClatchy-Emptywheel mis-states Goldsmith:

McClatchy:

"Yet another memo, written by former Office of Legal Counsel head Jack Goldsmith, it asserts that prisoners in Iraq can be transferred outside the country for interrogations. The memo was used by the CIA to justify the practice known as rendition, in which the CIA moved prisoners to secret prisonis. Many international law experts have since criticized the practice as violating the Geneva Conventions."

Emptywheel:

"March 18, 2004: If the US ships Iraqis outside of Iraq, then they can torture them (Jack Goldsmith's opinion)"

THERE IS A BIG DIFFERENCE BETWEEN INTERROGATION AND TORUTURE-SHAME ON HER!