Editorial: Are we still torturing?

Saturday, Oct. 6, 2007 | 1:39 a.m.

Secret opinions issued by the Justice Department in 2005 authorized brutally harsh interrogations of terror suspects, The New York Times reported Thursday.

The newspaper also reported that the legal opinions - provided to the CIA - remain in effect today.

If the opinions are being followed, it would mean that the Bush administration is going against not only public opinion but the intent of Congress and a Supreme Court ruling as well.

President Bush departed from U.S. policy in February 2002 when he declared that the Geneva Conventions ban on torture does not apply to international terror suspects.

In August 2002 the Justice Department followed up with what became known as the "torture memo," which provided legal cover for the CIA to use extremely harsh methods when interrogating suspects.

By December 2004, however, national and international opinion against the U.S. embrace of torture was pressuring Washington. The Justice Department that month, in a written opinion, officially declared torture to be "abhorrent" and gave the impression it would end harsh interrogations.

The Times noted that Congress followed up in December 2005 with a bill banning cruel and degrading treatment of detainees, and that the Supreme Court in 2006 ruled that terror suspects are indeed covered under the Geneva Conventions.

Nevertheless, the 2005 opinions, written while disgraced Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was still running the Justice Department, have not been rescinded, according to the Times article. The Bush administration insists that the Justice Department's 2004 opinion still governs interrogations. The Democratic chairmen of the Senate and House judiciary committees want to check on that.

They have asked the White House to turn over the 2005 secret opinions, so they can read their wording.

They also want Steven Bradbury, the Justice Department official who signed the memos, to appear at hearings. The White House should quickly comply with those requests. Does the United States, the world's moral leader on human rights, still have an official policy allowing torture? It's a question that needs a definitive answer.