Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday, former Pentagon counsel William Haynes tried to absolve himself of blame for detainee abuse in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay. “As the lawyer, I was not the decision maker. I was the adviser,” he said. With anger in his voice, Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) told Haynes that his advice had led American soldiers drastically astray:
You did a disservice to the soldiers of this nation. You empowered them to violate basic conditions which every soldier respects — the Uniformed Code of Military Justice, the Geneva Convention. … Don’t go around with this attitude of you’re protecting the integrity of the military. You degraded the integrity of the United States military.
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Haynes was part of five-person team of high-level administration lawyers, dubbed the “War Council,” who hatched out the legal framework for torture in secret meetings. McClatchy reports, “The quintet did more than condone harsh treatment, however. It created an environment in which it was nearly impossible to prosecute soldiers or officials for alleged crimes committed in U.S. detention facilities.”
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