Last Two Standing: David Addington and John Bellinger to Engage in Combat for Next Year

Just saw this interesting news. Co-Architect of Bush detainee policies leaving government:

Architect of Bush's Detainee Policies to Step Down

A principal architect of the Bush administration's detainee policies is stepping down, just as military officials gear up for the Guantanamo Bay trial of alleged planners of the Sept. 11, 2001, conspiracy.

Since becoming Defense Department general counsel in 2001, William J. Haynes pushed the Pentagon toward a near-revolution in military law, away from traditional procedures for enemy prisoners and through a series of experiments in detention, interrogation and prosecution of suspected terrorists outside the Geneva Conventions or domestic law.

Teaming up with like-minded lawyers in the White House and the Justice Department, Mr. Haynes, a Harvard Law School graduate and former Army officer, formed the so-called war council that crafted the administration's legal response to the Sept. 11 attacks. Many of those policies, including establishment of the Guantanamo Bay prison, plans for military commission trials and detention of U.S. citizens as "enemy combatants," were new or hadn't been seen for decades.

Cheney Chief of Staff David Addington deserves a vast amount of scrutiny for the role that he has played as Cheney's enabler and as one of the single most important architects of the inappropriate, post-9/11 usurpation of authority by the Bush White House and the "Darkness at Noon" style torture and detainee policies of this administration. One of Addington's partners in Bush's "War Paradigm Council" was William Haynes.

I admire State Department Legal Advisor John Bellinger for the role he has played in trying to walk back this administration from the true abyss in its torture, detention, and rendition practices. And now I just hope that he will stay at least a few days longer than David Addington will as the Bush term dwindles down.

-- Steve Clemons publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note

Comments

[Dandy12]

Maybe the World Court will grab some of these people, Bush/Cheney, et al outside of the USA one day...

[nlightenup]

As pertains to William Haynes, check out Russ Tuttle's article on The Nation: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080303/tuttle, which is also cited here: http://greenmountaindaily.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=2323

[HansUnfeit]

These guys are all probably going to receive the Medal of Freedom in the near future.

[BrickSykes]

John Dean covered David Addington pretty well in "Worse Than Watergate." It seems to me, though, that they (Yoo, Haynes, et al) have a leadership team somewhere in the Federalist Society, Heritage Society, American Enterprise Institute, etc., who are calling Their shots. I don't see how they have concocted or conspired anything on their own.

I also doubt that much will be disclosed by the War Paradigm team. Those kinds of secrets will never be willingly forthcoming. There is simply too much for them to lose were they to come clean.

Brick