“On April 1, 2008, nearly four years after The Washington Post first revealed the existence of the Torture Memo, the Pentagon released a March [14] 2003 memo that went further than the original 2002 memo in arguing that the wartime powers of the executive as commander in chief of the armed forces are not subject to limitation by UN treaties against torture. In the memo, then-deputy assistant attorney general John Yoo argued ‘that customary international law is not federal law and that the president is free to override it at his discretion.’ …’Even if the criminal prohibitions outlined above applied and an interrogation method might violate those prohibitions,’ wrote Yoo, ‘necessity or self-defense could provide justifications for any criminal liability.’ ”
– Eugene Jarecki, The American Way of War, Pages 230-231