<p>One of the principle architects of the Rumsfeld Pentagon’s torture apparatus, Defense Department General Counsel William Haynes, is <a id="uqiz" href="http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=11711" title="quitting">quitting</a>. From the release:</p>

<blockquote>The Department of Defense announced today that General Counsel of the Department of Defense William J. Haynes II is returning to private life next month.

<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">&nbsp;</div>

<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates said of Haynes, &ldquo;I am sorry to see Jim leave the Pentagon. &nbsp;I have valued his legal advice and enjoyed workjng with him. &nbsp;Jim held this important post longer than anyone in history and he did so during one of America&rsquo;s most trying periods. &nbsp;He has served the Department of Defense and the nation with distinction.&rdquo;</div>

<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">&nbsp;</div>

<div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Said Haynes, &ldquo;I thank the President and the Secretary of Defense for their confidence and for the opportunity to serve. &nbsp;I leave the Pentagon humbled and inspired by the selfless sacrifices of the men and women, uniformed and civilian, who defend our country. &nbsp;And, I thank their families.&rdquo;<br />

Daniel J. Dell’Orto, principal deputy General Counsel of the Department of Defense since June 2000, will serve as acting General Counsel.</div>

</blockquote>

<p>A brief recap. Haynes, at the behest of Donald Rumsfeld, convened a working group in late 2002 and early 2003 to expand the boundaries of permissible interrogation techniques for so-called enemy combatants in Defense Department custody. What <a id="khom" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62516-2004Jun22.html" title="they approved in April 2003">they approved in April 2003</a> went far beyond the Geneva Conventions-compliant provisions of the Army Field Manual on interrogation. Those recommendations, used at Guantanamo Bay, eventually &quot;migrated&quot; (in the phrase of the <a id="zy9e" href="http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/08/24/abughraib.report/index.html" title="Schlesinger inquiry">Schlesinger inquiry</a> ) to Abu Ghraib. It’s going too far to say that &quot;No Haynes, No Torture,&quot; but he bears a measure of personal responsibility for what we’d call war crimes if they were committed by, say, Iran. <br /><br />

Then President Bush tried to appoint Haynes to a lifetime federal judgeship. <a id="enli" href="http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/002311.php" title="That didn’t turn out so well">That didn’t turn out so well</a>.<br /><br />

Also, this guy Dell’Orto? He’s not much better. From a <a id="tdgv" href="http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2005/08/right-makes-might-gary-farber.html" title="no-longer-online piece">no-longer-online piece</a> I wrote for TNR in August 2005:</p>

<blockquote>When GOP Senator Lindsey Graham recently quoted to Pentagon lawyer Daniel Dell’Orto the inconvenient section of Article I, Section 8, granting Congress the authority to &quot;make rules concerning captures on land and water,&quot; he farcically replied, &quot;I’d have to take a look at that particular constitutional provision.&quot;</blockquote>

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