Do We Torture?

"Rights activists criticized Bush's order for failing to spell out which techniques are now approved or prohibited. . . .

"'All the order really does is to have the president say, "Everything in that other document that I'm not showing you is legal -- trust me," ' said Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch."

William Douglas and Jonathan S. Landay write for McClatchy Newspapers: "Some experts in human-rights law said Bush's order contains 'loopholes' that would allow the CIA to continue using aggressive interrogation techniques that others would consider torture.

The order "'prohibits willful and outrageous acts of abuse, but only does so where the purpose is to humiliate and degrade an individual. But if an interrogator says these techniques, whether it's water-boarding or stress techniques, are done to elicit information, but not humiliate a detainee, they could argue that that would not run afoul of the executive order,' said Jonathan Hafetz, a lawyer with New York University School of Law's Brennan Center for Justice, which has represented detainees held by the United States.

"'The same thing goes for acts to denigrate someone's religion. If you took away someone's Quran not to denigrate, but as an interrogation technique to gain information -- which they've done in the past -- they could argue it was allowed under the order,' he said. . . .

"'Let's not forget that the administration's theory of executive authority is very broad. They reserve the right to interpret laws in ways no one agrees with in emergency situations,' said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch, a nonprofit activist group."

And Sifton said that the CIA program under Bush's order remains in violation of international law. "'Put torture to the side for a second. The CIA detention program, even if no mistreatment is occurring, is still illegal under international law because it allows incommunicado, indefinite detention. That is enforced disappearance. That exists entirely outside the rule of law,' he said."

Charlie Savage writes in the Boston Globe that "most of the president's executive order is written in generalities, leaving unanswered whether the CIA will be free to subject prisoners to a range of specific techniques it has reportedly used in the past, including long-term sleep disruption, prolonged shackling in painful stress positions, or 'waterboarding,' a technique that produces the sensation of drowning.

"The administration is separately crafting a list of permitted and forbidden tactics that it said will comply with Bush's executive order, but the list is classified. In a background conference call with reporters yesterday, a senior administration official declined to say whether the new guidelines will permit tactics such as waterboarding.

"'I am not in a position to talk about any specific interrogation practices,' the official said. 'It is impossible for us, consistent with the objectives of such a program, to publicize to the enemy what practices may be on the table and what practices may be off the table. That will only enable Al Qaeda to train against those that are on or off.'"

Mark Mazzetti writes in the New York Times that the order "does not authorize the full set of harsh interrogation methods used by the C.I.A. since the program began in 2002. But government officials said the rules would still allow some techniques more severe than those used in interrogations by military personnel in places like the detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

"Several officials said the permitted techniques did not include some of the most controversial past techniques, among them 'waterboarding,' which induces a feeling of drowning, and exposure to extremes of heat and cold. . . .