This undated summary of legal advice provided by the Justice Department鈥檚 Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) chronicles the systematic manner in which government lawyers authorized abusive interrogations for both the CIA and Department of Defense.
As we have seen in the past few days, the Department of Defense鈥檚 interrogation program, though it did not involve waterboarding, used many other 鈥淓nhanced Interrogation Techniques鈥 and was every bit as brutal in its impact鈥攁nd undoubtedly much more widespread.
Note not only the similarity of techniques, but also the OLC's consistent advice regarding supposed defenses to the use of torture. According to the OLC, an interrogator who engaged in torture might claim that he was acting out of necessity or self defense. Those defenses are specifically prohibited by Article 2 of the : 鈥淣o exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.鈥
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To read more about and see documentary evidence of the Bush administration's torture program, go to .