![]() "After I read these opinions I had a whole flurry of emotions," he said. In a 2007 interview with the PBS program "Frontline," Goldsmith described the problems he had reviewing and standing by Yoo's work. Jack Goldsmith who headed OLC from October 2003 to July 2004, and worked at the Pentagon before coming to the department, has described many of the legal opinions, including the Bybee memo, as "flawed." The memo is known as the Bybee memo after Jay Bybee, who was at the time the head of the Office of Legal Counsel, though Yoo drafted much of the document. 1, 2002 memorandum, which laid out standards and legal guidance for interrogation, including possible justification for torture. But previous interrogation memos, which have been released, include an Aug. The Justice Department still has not disclosed an additional February 2005 legal opinion, which was drafted after Attorney General Alberto Gonzales took office. "We conclude that the Bush administration's understanding created a valid and effective reservation to CAT." ![]() The 81-page memorandum noted, "Even if any nation had properly objected, that would mean only that there would be no provision prohibiting torture in effect between the United States and the objecting nation - effectively mooting the question whether an interrogation method violates the Torture Convention." The memo also laid out a defense against the authority of the U.N. "This national and international version of the right to self-defense could supplement and bolster the government defendant's individual right." In that case, we believe that he could argue that the executive branch's constitutional authority to protect the nation from attack justified his actions." "If a government defendant were to harm an enemy combatant during an interrogation in a manner that might arguably violate a criminal prohibition, he would be doing so in order to prevent further attacks on the United States by the al Qaeda terrorist network. "Accordingly the Eighth Amendment has no application here." "Unlike imprisonment pursuant to a criminal sanction, the detention of enemy combatants involves no sentence judicially imposed or legislatively required," the memo said. ![]() ![]() It also asserted, "The detention of enemy combatants can in no sense be deemed 'punishment' for purposes of the Eighth Amendment," which prohibits "cruel and unusual" forms of punishment. "The Fifth Amendment due process clause does not apply to the president's conduct of a war," the memo noted. Constitution, which in part protect rights of individuals charged with crimes, do not apply equally to enemy combatants. The memo, released Tuesday, determined that amendments to the U.S. The Mamemorandum, which has been replaced by later memos, provided legal guidance for military interrogations of alien unlawful combatants, and concluded that the president's authority during wartime took precedence over the individual rights of enemies captured in the field. Ap— - The Justice Department's newly declassified torture memo outlined the broad legal authority its lawyers gave to the Bush White House on matters of torture and presidential authority during times of war. ![]()
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