The Bush Administration’s Anti-Torture Team and Their Anti-Torture Memos

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Last week, Mother Jones reported that Philip Zelikow, the Counselor to the State Department in the Bush administration, suspects that Dick Cheney was behind an order to “collect and destroy” all copies of an anti-torture memo he wrote. Zelikow also told Mother Jones about the existence of other memos arguing against torture. Two of those memos were released at a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing this morning, where Zelikow testified about the existence of a small group of dissidents—himself, state department legal adviser John Bellinger, and Gordon England, the deputy secretary of defense, among others—who tried to get the administration to change its detainee treatment policies in 2005 and 2006. You can read about the memos and Zelikow’s testimony here.

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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