The Torture Files

Sunday, Jan. 09, 2005 By MICHAEL DUFFY BRIAN BENNETT; PERRY BACON JR.; TIMOTHY J. BURGER; MATTHEW COOPER; ELAINE SHANNON; MARK THOMPSON/WASHINGTON; MITCH FRANK/NEW YORK

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Like a recurring nightmare, Abu Ghraib never quite goes away. The alleged ringleader of the horrors inflicted at the Baghdad prison, whose grin and thumbs-up over the body of a dead Iraqi prisoner became an image of national shame, showed up for his court-martial in Fort Hood, Texas, last week, with a clean shave and a solemn face. A day earlier, President George W. Bush's choice for Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, who played a large role in orchestrating, if not actually drafting, a change in the Administration's rules on torture, was asked to explain himself before the Senators of the Judiciary Committee who are considering his nomination. Three years after 9/11, the question remains: How did we end up abusing prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan and the U.S. naval base at Guant??namo Bay, Cuba--almost 20 inmate deaths are being investigated--and what is our policy now?

No one disputes the fact that the Bush team departed abruptly from convention when it loosened rules governing interrogations of prisoners. Some critics say those decisions amounted to an authorization of torture--a charge the Administration has flatly and repeatedly denied, right up through last month, when it abruptly revised its legal basis for interrogation rules for the second time in 28 months. During his confirmation hearing, Gonzales was quick to say he opposed torture in any form. But the question was never whether Gonzales supported torture--it was whether he helped narrow its legal definition so much that he licensed the use of any technique that did not cause grave injury or death.

Gonzales is certain to be confirmed as John Ashcroft's replacement, especially because Democrats are wary of opposing a Hispanic when their hold on that constituency was weakened in the last election. But Gonzales' nomination raises six issues that are still being sorted out by the government or its watchdogs.

WHY DID THE OLD POLICY GET A MAKEOVER?

Many believe it didn't need one. ??Until 9/11, the U.S. military had officially followed the Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions, a series of treaties governing rules of war. But after 9/11, the Bush Administration believed the old rules were naive and unrealistic in the face of a stateless enemy that used airplanes as weapons to kill civilians. Vice President Dick Cheney explained the new approach in an interview just five days after the 9/11 attacks: "We also have to work, though, sort of the dark side. A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies, if we're going to be successful. That's the world we operate in, and so it's going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal, basically, to achieve our objective."