One Obama Administration appointment that has not received much attention either in the blogosphere or the mainstream media (the exceptions being the always excellent and perceptive Spencer Ackerman and Carolyn O’Hara over at Passport) is the appointment of Jeh Johnson to serve as General Counsel at the Department of Defense.

This is a great choice, and not just because Johnson brings first-rate legal credentials and a distinguished track-record on civil rights issues.  More importantly, he previous experience in the Pentagon, having served during the Clinton Administration as General Counsel to the Department of the Air Force.

Why is this position so important?  Two words:  William Haynes.  For those unfamiliar with Haynes, you only need to know two things:  1) he was General Counsel at DOD during the Bush Administration; 2) he was a key ally of David Addington, Alberto Gonzales, and John Yoo successful efforts to legalize torture, and indefinite detention.

In The Dark Side, Jane Mayer identifies Haynes as one of the five architects of Bush and Cheney’s torture, detention, and rendition policies (the others were Gonzales, Addington, Yoo, and CIA General Counsel Timothy Flanigan).  He is the individual who told Alberto Mora (the Navy General Counsel who objected to the nascent torture policies) that the White House had decided to move forward with its interogation plans.

And perhaps most importantly, he drafted and/or signed the decision memos recommending that Donald Rumsfeld approve “enhanced” interrogation techniques.  He therefore could be described as the engineer, if not the architect, who made both Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib possible.

As I noted back in September, Haynes is one of twelve Bush Administration officials whom should be prosecuted for war crimes.

Obama’s choice of Jeh Johnson represents as important a break with past policy as his choice of Dawn Johnsen to serve as the head of the Office of Legal Counsel at Justice (and, for that matter, his selection of David Barron and Marty Lederman as her principal deputies).  Johnsen is to Yoo as Johnson is to Haynes (although technically speaking, Yoo was the deputy chief of OLC, his relationship with Addington gave him greater authority and access than his bosses).  Like her near-namesake at DOD, Johnsen has a distinguished track record, including a stint during the Clinton Administration as deputy chief of OLC.  In a recent law review article, she described the Bushies’ torture policies as illegal.

Obama has now named hard-headed realists — individuals who recognize the damage caused by the Bush Administration’s torture regime and see the solution as returning the U.S. government to its core values — to the very positions that, under Bush, were largely responsible for creating the tortured legal justifications for torture.

Johnson and Johnsen both will play a central role in dismantling Guantanamo-centered detention regime, per Obama’s executive orders of January 22nd, which establishes an inter-agency working group to facilitate the closure of all such detention facilities and evaluate what to do with the remaining detainees.  Although the orders name Cabinet-level officials to the committee, most of the work is likely to be done, in the words of the orders “their designates.”  That probably means that J & J will be players in making the orders more than symbolic acts.

Related posts

• Prosecuting Those Responsible for War Crimes
• Ambassador for All War Crimes except Our Own
• What’s Missing at DNC: Torture, Guantanamo. . .and Cheney
• The New Executive Orders: Guantanamo, Torture, Detainees
• Powell, Obama, and Torture