[T]he March 14th Yoo memorandum, and the April 2, 2003 DOD Working Group Report that incorporated its outrageous arguments about justifications for ignoring statutory limits on interrogation, was secretly briefed to Geoffrey Miller before he was assigned to Iraq, and became the source of all the abuse that occurred there in 2003 and early 2004.

thereby laying moral (and possible legal) responsibility for the abuses Abu Ghraib at the feet of Yoo and Miller, who could no doubt implicate people yet higher in the chain of command.

A few bad apples, indeed!

Also here’s bio of Mary Walker, another blond and devout evangelical…

http://www.sourcewatch.org/ind…..ary_Walker

As to the kids – who knows what has happened. If they are alive and are ever going to be produced, they will no longer look like children, that’s for sure. It’s been years and no one in Congress ever mentions them. Or their mother. But one of the GITMO detainees (I think the only one we haven’t released back to Britain) had DOJ go after his ability to even talk to his lawyer, much less testify, about what happened to him before he made it to GITMO and IIRC he is the detainee who also says he was held for a time at the same facility where the children were being tortured.

But the threats to kill family members as an accepted interrogation technique sure show up in the memos solicited and approved by the Man Who Comey and Goldsmith Wanted To Make Judge.

Thank God for Pat Leahy or Haynes would have been snuck in.

Nonetheless, the decision is still best read as indicating that the acts at issue did not constitute torture.

It has been more than four months since I asked the White House – again – to declassify the secret Justice Department opinions on interrogation practices. Today’s declassification of one such memo is a small step forward, but in no way fulfills those requests. The administration continues to shield several memos even from members of Congress.

Points up the Why this one? / Why now? question.