Editorial: Stop the stonewalling

Thursday, June 24, 2004 | 9:02 a.m.

The Bush administration has released a number of internal legal memos that discussed just how harsh interrogations should be of people who have been detained following 9-11 and the Iraq war. Initially, the White House fought the release of these memos but acquiesced on Tuesday after criticism that the administration may have created the conditions for the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal.

The White House contends it has done nothing wrong and on Tuesday touted a February 2002 directive by President Bush that said all people detained in the war on terrorism should be treated humanely, even if the U.S. government didn't believe they were protected by the Geneva Conventions. Administration officials on Tuesday also repudiated an August 2002 memo from the Justice Department that seemed to offer a permissive view of torture. The memo was written by a Nevadan -- then-Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, who is now a federal judge. (Once again the White House doesn't hesitate to trash one of its own when it needs a scapegoat.)

The Bush administration may hope this controversy will go away now, but Democrats aren't ready to comply. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., notes that most of the legal memos that Democrats have requested have not been released. Further, Democrats say, the legal reasoning in the memos made public only pertains to military interrogations -- not to interrogations conducted by the CIA. This White House has become expert at stonewalling Congress, but it's time to release all of the relevant memos regarding interrogation tactics.