David Addington, Cheney's Chief Of Staff, Subpoenaed To Discuss Interrogation Practices

WASHINGTON — The House Judiciary Committee voted Tuesday to compel a top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney to testify to the committee about the Bush administration's interrogation practices.

David Addington, Cheney's chief of staff, refused to testify without a subpoena. No date has been set for his appearance before Congress.

Addington is one of several lawyers believed to have played a key role in crafting the administration's interrogation policies shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, policies which some say amounted to torture.

John Yoo, the former Justice Department lawyer who wrote a now-repudiated memo allowing the harsh interrogations of military prisoners agreed late Monday to testify to Congress about those practices, averting a subpoena. Yoo is now a law professor at University of California-Berkeley.

Yoo's memo, dated March 14, 2003, outlines a legal justification for military interrogators to use harsh tactics against al-Qaida and Taliban detainees overseas _ so long as they did not specifically intend to torture their captives.

Former Attorney General John Ashcroft, former Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith, and former Assistant Attorney General Daniel Levin have also agreed to give testimony at a future hearing. Former CIA Director George Tenet is still in negotiations with the committee, according to House Judiciary Committee spokeswoman Melanie Roussell.

The Judiciary Committee hearings are meant to determine what role administration lawyers played in creating and approving interrogation procedures that went far beyond those traditionally used by U.S. forces, and whether any of them violated their legal or ethical obligations, said Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich.

Comments

[Danny]

What took them so long?

[krocklin]

This is the kind of issue that is a losing one for Democrats.
Much of the public doesn't care if we abuse our "enemies".
In fact its a badge of toughness, like war itself, that appeals to a large swathe of the public.
Whenever there are humanitarian cries of injustice, or sensible obvious solutions proposed for clear problems, much of the public shuts them out as bleeding heart liberalism and it just consolidates support for Republicans.
Unfortunately that's the way it is. I can already hear the rightwing talk show hosts mocking any investigation that might go before congress.

[wmfor]

I hate to think you are right, but you may indeed be. Nor do they care who decides who is the enemy or the suspected enemy or the perhaps friend and/or acquaintance of the suspected enemy who is to be tortured. Until, of course, the torturer comes for them... Meanwhile, there's the Mall do distract us from such ugly thoughts.