Dec 15, 2007 
Charlie Savage writes in today’s Boston Globe:
The Bush administration is pushing to take control of the promotions of military lawyers, escalating a conflict over the independence of uniformed attorneys who have repeatedly raised objections to the White House’s policies toward prisoners in the war on terrorism.
The administration has proposed a regulation requiring “coordination” with politically appointed Pentagon lawyers before any member of the Judge Advocate General corps – the military’s 4,000-member uniformed legal force – can be promoted. …
… Retired Major General Thomas Romig, the Army’s top JAG from 2001 to 2005, called the proposal an attempt “to control the military JAGs” by sending a message that if they want to be promoted, they should be “team players” who “bow to their political masters on legal advice.”
It “would certainly have a chilling effect on the JAGs’ advice to commanders,” Romig said. “The implication is clear: without [the administration's] approval the officer will not be promoted.”
Some familiar names crop up:
The JAG rule would give new leverage over the JAGs to the Pentagon’s general counsel, William “Jim” Haynes, who was appointed by President Bush. Haynes has been the Pentagon’s point man in the disputes with the JAGs who disagreed with the administration’s assertion that the president has the right to bypass the Geneva Conventions and other legal protections for wartime detainees. …
… One of Haynes’ allies on the Bush administration legal team, former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo, recently coauthored a law review article sharply critical of the JAGs’ unwillingness to endorse the legality of the administration’s treatment of wartime detainees.
Yoo, who wrote a series of controversial legal opinions about the president’s power to bypass the Geneva Conventions and antitorture laws before leaving government in 2003, called for some kind of “corrective measures” that would “punish” JAGs who undermine the president’s policy preferences.
Yoo’s law review article did not specifically discuss injecting political appointees into the JAG promotions process, and Yoo said in an e-mail that he did not know anything about the new Pentagon proposal. But several retired JAGs said they think the proposed change is an attempt by the Bush administration to turn Yoo’s idea into a reality.
Meanwhile, Bush is threatening to veto a bill that would ban the CIA from using waterboarding and other forms of torture, all the while claiming that the U.S. doesn’t torture people. A former employee of a Boeing subsidiary says an executive bragged “We do all the extraordinary rendition flights … the torture flights.” And the Justice Department is stonewalling Congress over the destruction of CIA videotapes.
BTW, Bush is claiming ignorance of those tapes; Larry Johnson argues persuasively that Bush probably was treated to a personal screening.
And I’m not exactly holding my breath waiting for Congress to act.
See also: Mark Benjamin, “Inside the CIA’s notorious ‘black sites.’”
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