DOJ Memo Considered Eye-Gouging and Ear-Cutting, in Graphic But Dry Detail

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DOJ Memo Considered Eye-Gouging and Ear-Cutting, in Graphic But Dry Detail

Posted Apr 7, 2008, 10:45 am CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss

Can the president authorize interrogators to gouge the eyes of a terrorism detainee? To throw acid on him or to cut his nose or ear?

All those questions were considered in dry but graphic language in a recently declassified 2003 memo for the Justice Department by John Yoo, then-deputy assistant attorney general in Office of Legal Counsel, the Washington Post reports.

Yoo wrote that the answer to those questions usually depends on which body part is specified in a law that prohibits maiming, the story says. But in a time of war, Yoo wrote, the president has the authority to override the statute when military interrogators are questioning al-Qaida suspects overseas. The memo was later withdrawn.

Dawn Johnsen, an Indiana University law professor and a former chief in the Office of Legal Counsel, told the Post the respectable-sounding language in the memo can make the reader lose sight of the issues. "He is saying that poking people's eyes out and pouring acid on them is beyond Congress' ability to limit a president. It is an unconscionable document," she said.

Yoo defended his memo in an online interview with Esquire magazine, saying he could have written the memo in a more palatable way, but it would not have been specific enough. Yoo said then-Attorney General John Ashcroft approved the memo.

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