The infamous torture memo

The Dean of Yale law school, Harold Koh, has testified during Alberto Gonzales' confirmation hearings for the position of Attorney General of the United States. Koh said the infamous torture memo, which attempted to provide a legal justification for engaging in torture, was:

"in my professional opinion as a law professor and a law dean, the Bybee memorandum is perhaps the most clearly legally erroneous opinion I have ever read."

Gonzales is the White House counsel who asked for the torture opinion and received the "Memorandum from Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee to The White House Counsel on interrogation methods that do not violate prohibitions against torture" in response in August 2002. He has now repudiated the part of the memo that stated:

"The Congress may no more regulate the president's ability to detain and interrogate enemy combatants than it may regulate his ability to direct troop movements on the battlefield"

The Gonzales hearings have proved to be less contentious than a number of people were predicting they might be.

John Dean, former White House Counsel to President Nixon, who writes this Findlaw report on the issue, is not exactly a fan of the current administration, of course.