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Military Lawyers Warn Bush Rules Could Sanction Torture

HeadlineAug 27, 2007

The Bush administration’s new rules for questioning CIA prisoners are raising internal worries of possible breaches of the Geneva Conventions. The Boston Globe reports top Pentagon lawyers have briefed a Senate group on last month’s executive order that established interrogation guidelines. The Judges Advocates General, or JAGs, are said to have told the senators President Bush’s order appears carefully worded to allow humiliating or degrading interrogation techniques. Bush’s order outlaws such practices but not unequivocally. It says they’re only banned if used “for the purpose of humiliating or degrading the individual.” The JAGs say that could let interrogators off the hook for torture if they claim to act in the name of national security. The Army’s top JAG, Major General Scott Black, went so far as to send a memo to soldiers emphasizing the new CIA rules do not apply to the military.

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