Ashcroft testifies on 'torture' memos
- added July 17, 2008
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"It was not a hard decision for me."
That was the way former U.S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft today described his decision to back off controversial Justice Department legal opinions produced by then-Deputy Assistant Atty. Gen. John Yoo. The memoranda, written in 2002 and 2003, you may remember, spelled out the use of interrogation techniques that described torture as "extreme acts" that cause pain similar in intensity to that caused by death or organ failure.
The memos said, in effect, that anything short of that was OK. They have been among the most controversial documents to come to light in the Bush administration in its campaign against terrorism.
The former attorney general, who ran the Justice Department from 2001 to 2005, was the man who originally approved the memos.
But testifying before the House Judiciary Committee today, he said: “It became apparent in the further examination of those opinions, when made in another time frame, that there were matters of concerns that were brought to my opinion."
Democrats challenged Ashcroft, according to the Associated Press account of the hearing, with questions about the frequency of waterboarding -- and he said he did not think that the procedure, as the CIA then described it, was torture.
--James Gerstenzang
Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images
That was the way former U.S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft today described his decision to back off controversial Justice Department legal opinions produced by then-Deputy Assistant Atty. Gen. John Yoo. The memoranda, written in 2002 and 2003, you may remember, spelled out the use of interrogation techniques that described torture as "extreme acts" that cause pain similar in intensity to that caused by death or organ failure.
The memos said, in effect, that anything short of that was OK. They have been among the most controversial documents to come to light in the Bush administration in its campaign against terrorism.
The former attorney general, who ran the Justice Department from 2001 to 2005, was the man who originally approved the memos.
But testifying before the House Judiciary Committee today, he said: “It became apparent in the further examination of those opinions, when made in another time frame, that there were matters of concerns that were brought to my opinion."
Democrats challenged Ashcroft, according to the Associated Press account of the hearing, with questions about the frequency of waterboarding -- and he said he did not think that the procedure, as the CIA then described it, was torture.
--James Gerstenzang
Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images
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- Vierotchka
- 1 month ago
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