This is a case in which the U.S. claim of ’self-defense’ against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq has been shown to be 100% wrong — and that those making the claim knew it to be a crock at the time.

Your points about lack of intl body to hold the rogue superpower accountable are correct, and the difference between this charge and torture. But if ever there was a case of a war of aggression, this is it. It’s my fond hope that investigations will bring out as verified fact the use of torture to gin up additional bogus “evidence” for the fraudulent claim of self-defense.

If ‘this time’ (production of Zelikow memo in response to Bradbury OLC memo) is mid-2005, not so. The big transfer of the ‘worst of the worst’ from the black sites to Guantanamo happened in September 2006.

And &sid=ST2009042204035″>this story by WaPo referred to a few other things, including a letter from Ashcroft

A fresh legal review by the Justice Department prompted Ashcroft to inform the CIA in writing on July 22, 2004, that its interrogation methods — except waterboarding — were legal. The following month, the head of the department’s Office of Legal Counsel added that even waterboarding would be legal if it were carried out with a series of safeguards according to CIA plans. By May 2005, the department had completed two more reviews of the program that came to the same conclusion. Those were among the memos President Obama released last week.

emph added

So there was also a letter from Ashcroft in July 2004 and something from OLC in August 2004, preceding the May, 2005 memos.

I think Christy and a few others have pointed out the ways OLC memos are requested – and you point to Yoo’s testimony about Bellinger making the request. So we are also missing the requests, which leaves out a lot of the story.

But IMO, what you may have is something like the OLC memo to Rizzo which Ashcroft also “signed out” to NSC under the pressure from Rice (which would explain why he’s snitty about her now too – she may have made him sign off on the dotted line himself, as opposed to being able to just point back to Yoo).

Be nice if we end up with more info later.

So yeah, he knew.

I’m not sure what you are getting at in response to my post. Some detainees were held at GITMO originally but as a part of the CIA program they moved them after Rasul, putting GITMO within US jurisdiction.

My points have been directed at why I think there were two memos –

one by Zelikow offering up legal reasoning in response to the poor legal reasoning in the May CIA memos (and dealing with arguments under the 5th, 8th, torture act, etc.) and

one by Zelikow and England (with assists from Waxman) offering up policy arguments for why the military interrogation program should be dialed back and the military should go back to following the Geneva Conventions (even though they try to make it more palatable by saying – of course, this would just be bc we are great guys, not bc we HAVE to give them this treatment) and mentioning that without those kind of bright lines, too, nebulously referenced CIA programs will bleed through.

So I’m not sure why you are saying that you think the fact that CIA detainees were at times held on military bases means it is more likely there is one memo, not two. I think that fact goes to the bleed through issue that the England memo is reported to address. But keep in mind that the memos on the CIA program would ordinarily NOT be anything that Waxman would have been able to access with their classification and his status.

Re: “power” to issue a legal opinion – it’s not about power, it’s about having a role. For example, I could issue a legal memorandum today, but no one in DOJ would be required to abide by my holdings. You had a CIA program and a military program, neither of those were areas where State legal counsel had a “client” or an abiilty to give a meaningful intervention. But he went ahead and put it out there anyway.