Mukasey on Waterboarding: No, I Will NOT Uphold the Law

Thursday’s torture news:

Waterboarding is necessary though probably not legal, CIA Director Michael Hayden told Congress Thursday as Attorney General Michael Mukasey said he would not open a criminal investigation into the CIA’s use of the technique.

Strapping a person to a surface, covering their face with cloth and pouring water on their face to imitate the sensation of drowning could be used if “an unlawful combatant is possessing information that would help us prevent catastrophic loss of life of Americans or their allies,” said Hayden.

“In my own view, the view of my lawyers and the Department of Justice, it is not certain that that technique would be considered lawful under current statute,” he told the House Intelligence Committee after publicly disclosing that the CIA had used waterboarding on three of the enemy combatants.

Nevertheless, Attorney General Michael Mukasey told Congress, also today:

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers asked Mukasey bluntly whether he was starting a criminal investigation since Hayden confirmed the use of waterboarding.

“No, I am not, for this reason: Whatever was done as part of a CIA program at the time that it was done was the subject of a Department of Justice opinion through the Office of Legal Counsel and was found to be permissible under the law as it existed then,” he said.

Mukasey said opening an investigation would send a message that Justice Department opinions are subject to change.

“Essentially it would tell people, ‘You rely on a Justice Department opinion as part of a program, then you will be subject to criminal investigations … if the tenure of the person who wrote the opinion changes or indeed the political winds change,'” he said. “And that’s not something that I think would be appropriate and it’s not something I will do.”

One of Mukasey’s mentors (and of his boss as well), Pol Pot, used waterboarding to torture prisoners during the Khmer Rouge regime. One of the Khmer Rouge’s surviving victims painted a picture of a prisoner being tortured with waterboarding.

Are they proud to be in that number?

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