Bad Apples

If you read nothing else from the Senate Armed Services Committee's report on the Bush Administration's torture policies, read this:

The abuse of detainees in U.S. custody cannot simply be attributed to the actions of "a few bad apples" acting on their own. The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees. Those efforts damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral authority. This report is a product of the Committee's inquiry into how those unfortunate results came about.

Here are a few section headings you should be aware of, too:

Department of Justice Redefines Torture

Military Lawyers Raise Red Flags and Joint Staff Review Quashed

Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld Approves Aggressive Techniques

DoD Working Group Ignores Military Lawyers and Relies on OLC [i.e., the Bush White House's Office of Legal Counsel --bjk]

Guantanamo Bay as a "Battle Lab" for New Interrogation Techniques

Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel's Analysis Is Presented As Controlling Authority