It seems to me we’re never going to see that report until after the eight-year statute of limitations on torture expire for everything described in the report that clearly exceeded John Yoo’s expansive interpretation of what constitutes torture.

They tortured the detainees to get claims of plots against the US. And then–even though the detainees insisted they had stopped planning against the US–they used intelligence about canceled or absurd plots to write scary memos so they could continue to use their illegal wiretap program.

As Josh Gerstein and Jack Goldsmith note, The Department of Justice (DOJ) just released two of the opinions underlying the warrantless wiretap programs. They both focus on the May 6, 2004 opinion Goldsmith wrote in the wake of the Ashcroft hospital confrontation.

The High Court in Spain has decided that it can proceed with its investigation of the torture that Lahcen Ikassrien alleges he suffered at Gitmo.

Josh Gerstein reports that the government has withdrawn from defending Donald Rumsfeld and others in the Jose Padilla suit Judge Richard Mark Gergel dismissed the other day. That’s mighty interesting.

Our Justice Department is not even being held to the very low standard that our nation’s spooks are.

Through what can only be described as a Christmas miracle, our very own Mary has “discovered” a new version of the Christmas Carol, as updated by the Obama/Bush Office of Legal Counsel. As Mary noted, “Those jokers at OLC. At least they enjoy their work”. Indeed. With “wise men” like John Yoo, Jay Bybee and Steve Bradbury, what could go wrong?

It’s not a surprise that the Obama Administration has been pointing to its own investigations — credible or not — to persuade the international community not to hold our torturers accountable. But it is useful to see how the diplomats and the lawyers first hatched that plan.

Bush has admitted to approving torture in 2003. But that likely obfuscates his earlier approval for torture at a time when he had no legal cover for doing so.

In other news, the statute of limitations on the torture tape destruction expires in just three or four days. Yet we’ve got silence coming from John Durham.

In a series of recent articles, I’ve pointed out Yoo, Bybee, and later Office of Legal Counsel attorney Stephen Bradbury, disregarded internal SERE documents related to the safety of waterboarding. Now we can add the suppression of complaints by SERE trainees of having contracted PTSD from participation in SERE training. This directly contradicts the Yoo/Bybee contention in the Aug. 2, 2002 memo to Rizzo, where they wrote, “Through your [i.e., CIA] consultation with various individuals responsible for such training, you have learned that these techniques have been used as elements of a course of conduct without any reported incident of prolonged mental harm.”