Just saw this interesting news. Co-Architect of Bush detainee policies leaving government:

Architect of Bush's Detainee Policies to Step Down

A principal architect of the Bush administration's detainee policies is stepping down, just as military officials gear up for the Guantanamo Bay trial of alleged planners of the Sept. 11, 2001, conspiracy.

Since becoming Defense Department general counsel in 2001, William J. Haynes pushed the Pentagon toward a near-revolution in military law, away from traditional procedures for enemy prisoners and through a series of experiments in detention, interrogation and prosecution of suspected terrorists outside the Geneva Conventions or domestic law.

Teaming up with like-minded lawyers in the White House and the Justice Department, Mr. Haynes, a Harvard Law School graduate and former Army officer, formed the so-called war council that crafted the administration's legal response to the Sept. 11 attacks. Many of those policies, including establishment of the Guantanamo Bay prison, plans for military commission trials and detention of U.S. citizens as "enemy combatants," were new or hadn't been seen for decades.

Cheney Chief of Staff David Addington deserves a vast amount of scrutiny for the role that he has played as Cheney's enabler and as one of the single most important architects of the inappropriate, post-9/11 usurpation of authority by the Bush White House and the "Darkness at Noon" style torture and detainee policies of this administration. One of Addington's partners in Bush's "War Paradigm Council" was William "Jim" Haynes.

I admire State Department Legal Advisor John Bellinger for the role he has played in trying to walk back this administration from the true abyss in its torture, detention, and rendition practices. And now I just hope that he will stay at least a few days longer than David Addington will as the Bush term dwindles down.

-- Steve Clemons