See if this sounds familiar….

Last month I blogged about the Newsweek story on the rebellion of politically-appointed Justice Department lawyers against the Dick Cheney/David Addington approach of how to run the war on terror and the executive branch. I got a powerful whiff of d?j? vu upon seeing that The New Yorker's Jane Mayer has a story about Alberto J. Mora, the general counsel of the United States Navy until January of this year. Why? Well, three reasons. First, the rebellion story sounds awfully familar: One document, which is marked ?secret? but is not classified, is a twenty-two-page memo written by Mora. It shows that three years ago Mora tried to halt what he saw as a disastrous and unlawful policy of authorizing cruelty toward terror suspects. The memo is a chronological account, submitted on July 7, 2004, to Vice Admiral Albert Church, who led a Pentagon investigation into abuses at the U.S. detention facility at Guant?namo Bay, Cuba. It reveals that Mora?s criticisms of Administration policy were unequivocal, wide-ranging, and persistent. Well before the exposure of prisoner abuse in Iraq?s Abu Ghraib prison, in April, 2004, Mora warned his superiors at the Pentagon about the consequences of President Bush?s decision, in February, 2002, to circumvent the Geneva conventions, which prohibit both torture and ?outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.? He argued that a refusal to outlaw cruelty toward U.S.-held terrorist suspects was an implicit invitation to abuse. Mora also challenged the legal framework that the Bush Administration has constructed to justify an expansion of executive power, in matters ranging from interrogations to wiretapping. He described as ?unlawful,? ?dangerous,? and ?erroneous? novel legal theories granting the President the right to authorize abuse. Mora warned that these precepts could leave U.S. personnel open to criminal prosecution. In important ways, Mora?s memo is at odds with the official White House narrative.... Mora thinks that the media has focussed too narrowly on allegations of U.S.-sanctioned torture. As he sees it, the authorization of cruelty is equally pernicious. ?To my mind, there?s no moral or practical distinction,? he told me. ?If cruelty is no longer declared unlawful, but instead is applied as a matter of policy, it alters the fundamental relationship of man to government. It destroys the whole notion of individual rights. The Constitution recognizes that man has an inherent right, not bestowed by the state or laws, to personal dignity, including the right to be free of cruelty. It applies to all human beings, not just in America?even those designated as ?unlawful enemy combatants.? If you make this exception, the whole Constitution crumbles. It?s a transformative issue.? Second, the description of Mora sounds similar to the conservative DOJ lawyers who nevertheless resisted Bush's proposed policy changes: Mora?whose status in the Pentagon was equivalent to that of a four-star general?is known for his professional discretion, and he has avoided the press. This winter, however, he agreed to confirm the authenticity and accuracy of the memo and to be interviewed.... Mora, a courtly and warm man, is a cautious, cerebral conservative who admired President Reagan and served in both the first and the second Bush Administrations as a political appointee. He strongly supported the Administration?s war on terror, including the invasion of Iraq, and he revered the Navy. He stressed that his only reason for commenting at all was his concern that the Administration was continuing to pursue a dangerous course. ?It?s my Administration, too,? he said. Third, the degree of duplicity going on just depresses the living hell out of me. Consider this section: Without Mora?s knowledge, the Pentagon had pursued a secret detention policy. There was one version, enunciated in [Pentagon general counsel William] Haynes?s letter to [Senator Patrick] Leahy, aimed at critics. And there was another, giving the operations officers legal indemnity to engage in cruel interrogations, and, when the Commander-in-Chief deemed it necessary, in torture. Legal critics within the Administration had been allowed to think that they were engaged in a meaningful process; but their deliberations appeared to have been largely an academic exercise, or, worse, a charade. ?It seems that there was a two-track program here,? said Martin Lederman, a former lawyer with the Office of Legal Counsel, who is now a visiting professor at Georgetown. ?Otherwise, why would they share the final working-group report with [head of Southern Comabd General James] Hill and [Guant?namo commander General Geoffrey] Miller but not with the lawyers who were its ostensible authors??.... The senior Defense Department official defended as an act of necessary caution the decision not to inform Mora and other legal advisers of official policy. The interrogation techniques authorized in the signed report, he explained, were approved only for Guant?namo, and the Pentagon needed to prevent the practices from spreading to other battlefronts. ?If someone wants to criticize us for being too careful, I accept that criticism willingly, because we were doing what we could to limit the focus of that report . . . to Guant?namo,? the official said. In fact, techniques that had been approved for use at Guant?namo were quickly transferred elsewhere. Four months after General Miller was briefed on the working-group report, the Pentagon sent him to Iraq, to advise officials there on interrogating Iraqi detainees. Miller, who arrived with a group of Guant?namo interrogators, known as the Tiger Team, later supervised all U.S.-run prisons in Iraq, including Abu Ghraib. And legal advisers to General Ricardo Sanchez, the senior U.S. commander in Iraq at the time, used the report as a reference in determining the limits of their interrogation authority, according to a Pentagon report on Abu Ghraib. A lawyer involved in the working group said that the Pentagon?s contention that it couldn?t risk sharing the report with its authors ?doesn?t make any sense.? He explained, ?We?d seen everything already.? The real reason for their exclusion, he speculated, was to avoid dissent. ?It would have put them in a bind,? he said. ?And it would have created a paper trail.?UPDATE: Here's a link to Mora's memo (hat tip: Andrew Sullivan). ANOTHER UPDATE: I've met John Yoo several times at conferences, and each time I've found him an engaging individual with a lively mind. But I have to think he's engaging in wishful thinking in this response to a Foreignpolicy.com interview: I would like to say that it is my understanding that the United States does not engage in torture, and that the reports of abuses that have occurred in Iraq or elsewhere appear to have been the result of individuals acting outside official policy. Abuses, while regrettable, sometimes happen in large organizations when individuals violate the rules. Link via Greg Djerejian.