Pentagon Makes Public the 2003 Working Group Report on Detainee Interrogation

The Department of Defense has posted the 2003 Working Group Report on Detainee Interrogations in the Global War on Terrorism (pdf) and comments from the Military Services' Judge Advocates (pdf) today on its Freedom of Information Act electronic reading room.

While much of this information may already be in the public realm, it is important that these documents in full are now directly available to the public through the Pentagon's own website.  The Army Judge Advocate General's memo to the Air Force's general counsel (pdf) is exceptionally enlightening.  On the first page it states that the Army JAG's "concerns center around the potential Department of Defense (DOD) sanctioning of detainee interrogation techniques that may appear to violate international law, domestic law, or both."

-- Nick Schwellenbach

Comments

[joshquasimoto]

I am surely not a lawyer but this reads like people basically asking for very narrow guidelines if certain interrogation techniques are used against "enemy combatants" but in no such case can any military personnell be present as this would be a major violation of geneva conventions and other treaties. They go on to say that the use of such practices would most likely be perceived as the US "creating a law unto itself" creating possibly unreplaceable damage on our image abroad. Basically our president and his administration is just the kind of cowboy that we thought he was. Clearly terrorism is a problem and not just a problem unique to America. If the practices we use to control it move beyond the standards by which we have for generations upheld then who are we as Americans. This is surely not the America I was raised in and is clearly not the ideal system that the world looks favorably upon. These politicians have made America look desperate, hysterical, bullish, naive and unsophisticated. I thought our history was one of constant progress to bring this nation forward in progress to form a more perfect union. I also realize that this nation has had highs and lows in attaining its current system, and once again George W Bush has shown us just how low we can sink as Americans!