As I noted in a report last year, in his book, "War by Other Means: An Insider's Account on the War On Terror," Yoo described his participation in meetings that helped develop the controversial policies for the treatment of detainees.
For instance, Yoo wrote about a trip he took to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with other senior administration officials to observe interrogations and to join in discussions about specific interrogation methods. In other words, Yoo was not acting as an independent attorney providing the White House with unbiased legal advice but was more of an advocate for administration policy.
The meetings that Yoo described appear similar to those disclosed by ABC News in April 2008.
"The most senior Bush administration officials repeatedly discussed and approved specific details of exactly how high-value al-Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the CIA," ABC News reported at the time, citing unnamed sources.
"The high-level discussions about these "enhanced interrogation techniques' were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.
"These top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al-Qaeda suspects whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding," according to unnamed sources quoted by ABC News.
Torture Preceded Legal Advice
If ABC's Karl had a firmer grasp on the issues he queried Cheney about he would have known that as recently as last week, three UK high-court judges released seven paragraphs of a previously classified intelligence document that proved the CIA tortured Binyam Mohamed, a British resident captured in Pakistan in April 2002 who was falsely tied to a dirty bomb plot, months before the Bush administration obtained a memo from John Yoo and Jay Bybee at the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) authorizing specific methods of torture to be used against high-value detainees, further undercutting Cheney's line of defense.
The document stated bluntly that Mohamed's treatment "could readily be contended to be at the very least cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment by the United States authorities."
Obama Turns A Blind Eye to Crimes
Under the United Nations Convention Against Torture, the treatment of Mohamed and the clear record that the Bush administration used waterboarding and other brutal techniques to extract information from detainees should have triggered the United States to conduct a full investigation and to prosecute the offenders. In the case of the US's refusal to do so, other nations would be obligated to act under the principle of universality.
However, instead of living up to that treaty commitment, the Obama administration has time and again resisted calls for government investigations and has gone to court to block lawsuits that demand release of torture evidence or seek civil penalties against officials implicated in the torture.
Though it's true, as Vice President Joe Biden stated Sunday on "Meet the Press," that Cheney is rewriting history and making "factually, substantively wrong" statements about the Obama administration's track record and approach to counterterrorism, it's difficult, if not near impossible, to defend this president from the likes of Cheney.
Case in point: last week the Obama administration treated the disclosure by British judicial officials of the former prisoner's torture as a security breach and threatened to cut off an intelligence sharing arrangement with the UK government.
In what can only be described as a stunning response to the revelations contained in the intelligence document, White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said "the [UK} court's judgment will complicate the confidentiality of our intelligence-sharing relationship with the UK, and it will have to factor into our decision-making going forward."
"We're deeply disappointed with the court's judgment today, because we shared this information in confidence and with certain expectations," LaBolt said, making no mention of Mohamed's treatment nor even offering him an apology for the torture he was subjected to by the CIA over the course of several years. Mohamed was released from Guantanamo last year and returned to the UK.
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