Yoo and Addington Stonewall House

The Washington Post reports Bush Administration Officials Defend Policies on Interrogation "Two key architects of the Bush administration's controversial interrogation policies defended their legal positions today, sparring with House Democrats over whether discredited Justice Department opinions led to unlawful torture of military and CIA detainees. The testimony from David S. Addington, chief of staff to Vice President Cheney, and John C. Yoo, a former senior Justice Department lawyer, was light on details but heavy on semantic disputes with lawmakers on a House Judiciary subcommittee."

Compare that article to this commentary by dday.

I watched some of this on C-SPAN. They were so evasive it was amazing. If they were asked "What color is the sky?" they would ponder and then say "there's no way I can give you answer in the general case, the answers would be different if it was during the day or night." If they representative specified during the day they would delay and ask what the weather was. If told clear they would ask the time of day. And then the representative's time would expire.

I did hear them asked if there was any interrogation technique the president could not order be used. Yoo answered that no president would order torture be used. This went back and forth and then the chairman tried clarifying that Yoo had been asked several times if the president could approve any technique and yet had always answered using "would". I never saw Yoo answer the question. It must have been deliberate stonewalling because there's no way a lawyer doesn't understand the difference between "could" and "would". If I were chairman I would have declared them in contempt of Congress.

At the end the chairman (Jerrold Nadler D-NY) asked "There have been a number of unanswered questions today, some on grounds of privilege others on the basis that any answer would unavoidably get into classified information. we will take those under advisement. depending on our determination we may need to revisit some of these questions with you perhaps in exec session for any matters that are classified. Can I get a commitment from each of you to make yourself available to any followup hearing that may be warranted?" Addington said "No Mr. Chairman but I'll wait here as long as you like."

C-SPAN has the video online in two parts: part 1 and part 2.

Update: Having watched it again I think Addington came off has quite smart and smug and Yoo as struggling and a bit over his head. I think he was assigned to take a position, he did so strongly but without good legal basis and unfortunately the administration (like Addington) ran with it.