http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/nation/8885107.htm?1cWASHINGTON - A March 2003 Pentagon report arguing that the United States isn't bound by laws and treaties against torture has worsened a rift between Bush administration officials seeking maximum leeway to question prisoners and military lawyers who fear reprisals against U.S. troops.
The 52-page classified memo, prepared for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, offered a sweeping assertion of executive power, declaring that Congress and the federal courts have no authority to limit the detention and interrogation of combatants captured in war if the president approves the actions.
''Any effort by Congress to regulate the interrogation of unlawful combatants would violate the Constitution's sole vesting of the commander-in-chief authority in the president,'' the report claimed.
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''They were trying to reverse a 50-year history of adherence to the Geneva Conventions and torture conventions, and it's very troubling,'' said Scott Silliman, a former Air Force officer who heads the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security at Duke University.
That effort has caused ''a major rift'' between civilian officials in the administration and military lawyers, Silliman said.
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pissing off the CIA and the military?
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