Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 7. Juni 2004 / Time Line June 7, 2004
Version 3.006/07/2004
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Politiken.
06/07/2004
The Pinochet Principle : Pentagon Report Set Framework For Use
of Torture
By: Bravin, Jess The Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB108655737612529969,00.html
Bush administration lawyers contended last year that the president
wasn't bound by laws prohibiting torture and that government agents
who might torture prisoners at his direction couldn't be prosecuted
by the Justice Department.
The advice was part of a classified report on interrogation methods
prepared for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld after commanders at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, complained in late 2002 that with
conventional methods they weren't getting enough information from
prisoners.
The report outlined U.S. laws and international treaties forbidding
torture, and why those restrictions might be overcome by
national-security considerations or legal technicalities. In a
March 6, 2003, draft of the report reviewed by The Wall Street
Journal, passages were deleted as was an attachment listing
specific interrogation techniques and whether Mr. Rumsfeld himself
or other officials must grant permission before they could be used.
The complete draft document was classified "secret" by Mr. Rumsfeld
and scheduled for declassification in 2013.
The working-group report elaborated the Bush administration's view
that the president has virtually unlimited power to wage war as he
sees fit, and neither Congress, the courts nor international law
can interfere. It concluded that neither the president nor anyone
following his instructions was bound by the federal Torture
Statute, which makes it a crime for Americans working for the
government overseas to commit or attempt torture, defined as any
act intended to "inflict severe physical or mental pain or
suffering." Punishment is up to 20 years imprisonment, or a death
sentence or life imprisonment if the victim dies. The report seemed
"designed to find the legal loopholes that will permit the use of
torture against detainees," said Mary Ellen O'Connell, an
international-law professor at the Ohio State University who has
seen the report. "CIA operatives will think they are covered
because they are not going to face liability."
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