May 6, 2008 11:00 am US/Pacific
Cal Professor And 'Torture Memo' Author To Testify
BERKELEY (CBS5/KCBS/AP) ―
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John Yoo, professor of law at University of California at Berkeley School of Law, gestures while speaking on the Bush presidency and the constitutional powers of war 22 February 2006 at the Heritage Foundation in Washington.
Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images
Former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo, who before becoming a law professor at UC Berkeley wrote a now-repudiated memo allowing the harsh interrogations of military prisoners, agreed to testify to Congress about those practices.
Yoo averted a subpoena by agreeing late Monday to testify. On Tuesday, the House Judiciary Committee voted to compel David Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, to testify before the committee. He had refused to do so without a subpoena.
Addington is one of several lawyers believed to have played a key role in crafting the administration's interrogation policies shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, policies which some say amounted to torture.
No date has been set for when Addington or Yoo will appearance before Congress.
Yoo's memo, dated March 14, 2003, outlines a legal justification for military interrogators to use harsh tactics against al Qaeda and Taliban detainees overseas - so long as they did not specifically intend to torture their captives.
Former Attorney General John Ashcroft, former Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith, and former Assistant Attorney General Daniel Levin have also agreed to give testimony at a future hearing. Former CIA Director George Tenet is still in negotiations with the committee, according to House Judiciary Committee spokeswoman Melanie Roussell.
The Judiciary Committee hearings are meant to determine what role administration lawyers played in creating and approving interrogation procedures that went far beyond those traditionally used by U.S. forces, and whether any of them violated their legal or ethical obligations, said Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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