(Update: For more on U.S. war crime prosecutions for waterboarding, see this later post.)

Years ago several legal memos surfaced in which the Bush administration’s lawyers attempted to justify the use of waterboarding and other means of “enhanced interrogation” despite legal prohibitions on torture and the fact that waterboarding, for example, had historically been prosecuted as a war crime by the United States.

Now the interesting fact emerges that Philip Zelikow at the Department of State had offered a contradictory legal opinion in a memorandum (PDF) that the Bush administration apparently tried to destroy. More at Salon.

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