For all the offensive officials in the Bush administration, it’s worth pausing a moment to celebrate when one of them leaves government service.
William J. Haynes II has served as general counsel at the Pentagon, where he was best known for having written the Defense Department’s infamous 2002 policies endorsing torture against terrorist suspects (in the process, Haynes sidestepped any military lawyer who was likely to object to his legal conclusions). On everything from military tribunals to bypassing the Geneva Conventions to detaining U.S. citizens without counsel or judicial review, it was Haynes who helped write the administration’s book.
Yesterday, to the country’s benefit, Haynes left the Pentagon and joined the private sector.
The Defense Department’s longest-serving general counsel, who has been criticized for his role in crafting Bush administration policies for detaining and trying suspected terrorists, is resigning to return to private life next month, the Pentagon said Monday. […]
In 2006, President Bush nominated Haynes for a seat on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Richmond, Va. The nomination was withdrawn in January 2007 when it appeared that the Senate’s new Democratic majority would not confirm Haynes.
A group of retired military officers opposing Bush’s position on the treatment of detainees had urged lawmakers to block Haynes’ appointment to the court. They contended that his role in establishing detention and interrogation policies led to abuses at the detention facility at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and called into question the military’s commitment to the rule of law.
The degree to which Haynes’ service had become scandalous became even more apparent just last week.
This one spoke volumes.
At this point, it’s not even controversial to say that the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay are a sham. The current chief judge there has written that the military tribunals have “credibility problems.” And the former chief prosecutor, after resigning, publicly criticized the system as “deeply politicized.”
Now that former prosecutor, Col. Morris Davis, has given more evidence of that politicization in an interview with The Nation after the six Gitmo detainees were charged. Davis says that in an August, 2005 meeting with William Haynes, then the Pentagon’s general counsel, Haynes seemed to completely discount the possibility of the military tribunals acquitting any of the detainees. Now, of course, Haynes has been installed as the official overseeing the whole process, both the prosecutors and the defense.
When Davis noted that trials would at least validate the process, win or lose, Haynes wouldn’t hear of it: “Wait a minute, we can’t have acquittals,” Haynes said. “If we’ve been holding these guys for so long, how can we explain letting them get off? We can’t have acquittals, we’ve got to have convictions.”
That this guy served as long as he did is a scandal. That Bush twice tried to give this guy a lifetime appointment to the federal appeals court is an outrage. That this guy is leaving government service now is a relief.