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William Haynes's picture for the torture accountability archives

William J. Haynes

Torture Connection: The Enabler
  • Born 1958, Waco, Texas.
  • Graduated from Davidson College, Harvard Law School.
  • Partner with law firm Jenner & Block, associate counsel with General Dynamics Corp.
  • Staff counsel for Defense Department when Cheney was secretary; Haynes's immediate supervisor was David Addington
  • General Counsel for Rumsfeld's Defense Dept., 2001-2008 (Addington's old job)
  • Left government in February 2008 to become Chief Corporate Counsel for Chevron

William Haynes turns White House theories into military realities

As protogee to David Addington and racquetball partner to John Yoo, William Haynes was trusted by the men with the ideas and clout to expand executive power and redirect anti-terrorism policies to the dark side. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld relied on him to install within the military establishment the policies devised by the self-proclaimed "war council" in the White House and Department of Justice. Haynes assigned and carefully routed memos authorizing extreme interrogation techniques, keeping critics out of the loop and outmaneuvering or overuling the military's judge advocate corps. He was extensively involved in many of the Bush administration's most noxious issues, including the military commissions and extreme interrogations.

Sources on William Haynes

Vanity Fair The Green Light by Philippe Sands
Seattle Times Secret Tactics Dictated Treatment of Detainees by Tom Lasseter
The New Yorker The Memo: How an Internal Effort to Ban the Abuse and Torture of Detainees Was Thwarted by Jane Mayer
Balkinization Battle Royale at the Pentagon: David Addington v. Common Article 3 by Marty Lederman
Balkinization How the Pentagon Came to Adopt Criminal Abuse as Official Policy by Marty Lederman
Huffington Post Could Gitmo Get Worse? The Policy Implications of Executive Accountability by Shahid Buttar
salon.com Rumsfeld: Architect of Torture by Mike Madden
salon.com The 13 People Who Made Torture Possible by Marcy Wheeler
Center for Grassroots Oversight History Commons: Daniel J. Dell'Orto by (na)