The Bush administration has issued a new directive retreating from its previously permissive view of torture. The new memo doesn't repudiate the previous policy, which allowed interrogators to inflict pain approaching that of organ failure or death, but it does concluded that the 2002 memo was wrong when it found that only "excruciating and agonizing pain" constituted torture, and that prosecution for committing torture was only possible if the defendant's goal was simply to inflict pain, rather than to extract information. "There is no exception under the statute permitting torture to be used for a 'good reason,' " the new memo concludes, even if the aim is "to protect national security."

From the Justice Department:

• "Severe" pain is no longer narrowly limited to the intensity of pain "accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily functions, or even death."
• Severe physical "suffering" can be distinct from severe physical "pain."
• In order to be classified as "prolonged" mental harm, conduct does not have to last for "months or even years."
• Infliction of severe pain or suffering does not have to be the defendant's "precise objective" in order to prosecute for war crimes.
  Source: Justice Department

An early New Years gift from Gonzales? Perhaps he's trying to butter up that Senate confirmation committee...

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