By Samuel Rubenfeld

It seems that the Bush administration-or by extension, the Republican party-cannot go more than a week without having to weather a scandal, and last week was no exception.

The New York Times reported Thursday, Oct. 3, about secret opinions written by the Justice Department and signed by Stephen Bradbury of the Office of Legal Counsel, an influential office in the Justice Department, in 2005 advocating interrogation methods that included “combined effects.”

The opinion allowed the CIA to combine all of the techniques already available to them by other Justice opinions in the previous three years, including water-boarding (simulated drowning), prolonged standing in extreme cold while naked, sleep deprivation and others.

This was even after the Justice Department had declared torture “abhorrent” in an opinion signed in December 2004. It undercut a law passed by Congress that declared “cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment” as illegal.

So to further circumvent that law, the Justice Department issued another opinion, alongside a signing statement from the president, saying that none of the CIA methods were illegal under the new law.

None of this should come as a surprise: The administration has violated the Geneva Conventions (which former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has derided as “quaint and obsolete”) and other internationally-backed treaties on interrogation since 2002, when John Yoo, then an official in the Office of Legal Counsel, wrote the infamous “torture memo.”

But what does come as a surprise is the sheer brazenness of the administration, which, after an 18-month hiatus, reinstated the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” by the CIA, the very techniques which led to the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay prison scandals. In addition, the executive order, which was signed this past July, restarts the program called “extraordinary rendition,” the program that authorized the CIA to bring prisoners to “black sites”-secret places that have poor records on human rights that torture prisoners for information.

These scandals, some have argued, are the largest inspiration for insurgent action against the United States in the Iraq war.

The heart of the debate is over whether the methods are effective. The administration says they are, but “many CIA professionals now believe patient, repeated questioning by well-informed experts is more effective than harsh physical pressure,” the New York Times article said.

All of the controversy surrounding the actions of the administration goes deeper than just the president; it goes back to Gonzales, who the New York Times editorial board calls “Mr. Bush’s loyal enabler.” He said little in meetings with officials regarding torture, instead deferring to David Addington, the vice president’s fierce, extremist chief counsel.

And the question about fundamental identity needs to be asked. Are we a country that tortures? Is that who we are as a people? Are we no better than those we call “terrorists”? Do we create new laws and then avoid accountability when we don’t abide by them?

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a 2008 presidential candidate, was tortured during his time as a prisoner of war while serving in Vietnam. He no longer has full use of his arms or back because he was beaten so badly. And he knows that torture doesn’t work.

Congress should effectively ban torture in all its forms. End the legalisms, end the back door deals over extraordinary rendition-end it all. Torture is ineffective, inefficient and dangerous. It puts American troops in harm’s way.

And if the administration-any administration-threatens to violate the ban, classified or not, Congress should investigate passing articles of impeachment. By putting American lives at risk, the president would be committing “high crimes and misdemeanors,” an offense impeachable under the Constitution.

Torture will be a high-profile issue at the conformation hearings for Michael Mukasey, the president’s latest nominee for attorney general, as the Washington Post editorial board correctly observed. Mukasey must be pressed to establish independence from the White House-something his predecessor did not do. He must also reassert the independence of the Office of Legal Counsel, which was just as loyal to the White House as Gonzales was. But most importantly, he must say, flatly, he will never tolerate, condone, authorize or execute torture on anyone detained by the U.S.

By participating in such secrecy, the administration has engaged in disturbing and disgusting action. It is time for some transparency and some accountability. We know torture doesn’t work-so they should stop doing it. And it is up to the Congress and the American people to stop them.

Samuel Rubenfeld is a junior print journalism student. You may e-mail him at [email protected].