As expected, Sen Leahy went right to the August 2002 memo issued by DOJ

Office of Legal Counsel. Leahy asks do you think it has to be pain

equivalent of “organ failure” or “death” to be torture — as the memo

(sort of) said. Gonzales said his job as WH Counsel was to ask the

question; it was up to DOJ to answer it; and the substance of that DOJ

opinion (which DOJ has rescinded) was never the position of the WH or,

more importantly, the policy of the United States. Leahy kept

interrupting Gonzales’s answer; Specter firmly intervened and permitted

Gonzales to answer.

Leahy keeps saying the Aug 2002 memo was “the policy of the Justice

Department” for two years. That memo is a legal analysis by non-policy

makers. It was never a statement of policy.