By Surekha Ratnatunga

A Spanish judge agreed Friday to hear evidence against six US lawyers, including former Attorney General Robert Gonzales, about their involvement in giving the Bush administration the “all clear” to torture suspects — including five Spanish citizens — detained at Guantanamo Bay.

The interrogation methods employed by the CIA include water-boarding, which is illegal according to the Geneva Convention. However, lawyers at the Justice Department wrote classified legal opinions that asserted the President’s power to sidestep the international laws regarding torture.

While other Bush officials are wisely keeping their mouths shut and returning to a private life, former (Vice-) President Dick Cheney has spent 2009 publicly defending the CIA’s “harsh interrogation techniques.” In an interview with CNN, Cheney said, “I think those programs were absolutely essential to the success we enjoyed of being able to collect the intelligence that let us defeat all further attempts to launch attacks against the United States since 9/11.”

Not so true, says the Washington Post, which ran a story about the Intelligence acquired from Abu Zubaida, the first top-level terrorist captured, through “harsh interrogation techniques.” Zubaida’s information prompted CIA agents to embark on an international wild goose chase that did not thwart a single terrorist plot. This is why evidence obtained under torture is usually not considered valid — a person is likely to say anything to end stop the pain.

Although the Spanish court may issue arrest warrants, actual arrests are unlikely. Without the compliance of the current US administration, indictments for human rights violations against Bush officials by a foreign court will merely be a symbolic gesture.

It is worth noting that human rights violations break US law, too. I’m not sure why Bush officials involved in permitting torture have so far been granted immunity from prosecution on US soil. I would love to see them go to trial, if only to find why they did not consider it logically and morally unsound to fight terror with torture.

Photo: Flickr courtesy of publik15