Abstract

Torture and Democracy

Editorial. If there was ever any doubt, it is now clear that the torture of Iraqi prisoners by United States soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison cannot be dismissed as the actions of a few bad actors. Two leaked memorandums, one to White House counsel Alberto Gonzales from the head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel and the other to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld from a Working Group on Detainee Interrogations in the Global War on Terrorism, make crystal clear that this President George W. Bush Administration consciously sought out every loophole it could find to justify inflicting physical and psychological pain on captives for the purpose of obtaining intelligence. Indeed, the memos argue, it would be unconstitutional for Congress, or international law, to seek to constrain the President's prerogatives, even on a matter as universally prohibited and morally repugnant as torture. The Office of Legal Counsel is often referred to as the" conscience" of the executive branch. The office's August 2002 memo to Gonzales provides the framework for the Working Group report to Rumsfeld that followed in March 2003. Both memos read like a tax lawyer's advice on loopholes. The significance of these memos goes far beyond torture, to the very core of our system of checks and balances.