June 27, 2008
Two Testify on Memo Spelling Out Interrogation
By SCOTT SHANE
WASHINGTON -- Two Bush administration lawyers who provided important legal justification for harsh interrogation methods that critics denounce as torture made a rare public appearance on Thursday to defend their actions.
The lawyers, John Yoo, the former Justice Department official who wrote several major legal opinions on torture, and David S. Addington, who as Vice President Dick Cheney's legal adviser provided support for the interrogation policies, spent more than three hours sparring with a House Judiciary subcommittee.
Both men made clear that a controversial torture memorandum of Aug. 1, 2002, was reviewed at the White House and in the office of Attorney General John Ashcroft and was by no means a renegade initiative of Mr. Yoo, its chief author. The memorandum, which said pain had to reach the level produced by "death or organ failure" to be illegal torture, was later withdrawn.
Mr. Addington recalled discussing the document with Mr. Yoo and Alberto R. Gonzales, then counsel to President Bush.
"My memory is of Professor Yoo coming over to see the counsel to the president and I was invited in the meeting with the three of us, and he gave us an outline of 'here are the subjects I'm going to address,' " Mr. Addington said.
"We said, 'Good,' " he added. "And he goes off and writes the opinion."
Mr. Yoo denied assertions by some officials that he had sought to bypass Mr. Ashcroft in writing the 2002 memorandum and other opinions favored by the White House.
Mr. Yoo, who worked in the Office of Legal Counsel, said he had supplied some drafts of the memorandum and its final version, signed by his boss at the time, Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee, to top aides to Mr. Ashcroft and his deputy, Larry Thompson. In written testimony, he said Mr. Ashcroft's staff "made edits to the opinion" and worked on it "up until the very minute it was signed."
In the view of some human rights advocates, the 50-page memorandum set the stage for abusive interrogations by both the Central Intelligence Agency, which had sought the legal opinion, and the Defense Department, by giving a stamp of legality to even extreme interrogation measures. After Mr. Yoo and Mr. Bybee left the Justice Department, their successors formally withdrew the memorandum.
Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York and the subcommittee chairman, said that as a result of the harsh interrogations and related policies, "the reputation of this nation, and our standing as the leading exponent of human rights and human dignity, have been seriously damaged." Mr. Nadler has organized a series of hearings examining interrogation policies.
Mr. Yoo and Mr. Addington, who rarely appears in public and was subpoenaed to testify, formed a united front in the face of skeptical questioning from Democrats, insisting that the administration's tough decisions had protected the country from a repeat of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. But their styles contrasted sharply.
Mr. Yoo, now a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, was polite and deferential, even as he declined to answer some questions, citing attorney-client privilege or restrictions on classified information.
Mr. Addington, physically bigger and a more experienced government insider, was more defiant, talking over subcommittee members who tried to cut him off and parrying questions with sarcasm.
Mr. Nadler asked him whether he would bear some responsibility if the C.I.A. interrogation program, which included the simulation of drowning called waterboarding, was found by a court to be illegal.
"Is that a moral question?" Mr. Addington, now Mr. Cheney's chief of staff, shot back. "A legal question?"
After more jousting with Mr. Nadler, Mr. Addington replied: "No, I wouldn't be responsible, is the answer to your question. Legally or morally."