July 13 (Bloomberg) -- When White House press secretary Tony Snow announced this week the U.S. would now abide by the Geneva Conventions, he said, ``It's not really a reversal of policy.''

Try telling that to enemy combatants subjected to cruel and inhumane treatment or to the families some of them left behind. More than 100 detainees have died in U.S. custody, according to Human Rights Watch, although there's no hard number on how many of those deaths have come as a result of abuse.

Just as Snow was making his announcement on Tuesday, Pentagon General Counsel William J. Haynes II, who had pushed for harsh interrogation methods over the objections of other top military lawyers, was appearing at confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee. President George W. Bush has nominated Haynes to the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia, a reward for doing the president's bidding that's far more valuable than the Medal of Freedom handed to equally cooperative minions such as former CIA Director George Tenet.

The problem for Haynes is that just as he tried to collect his prize, the Defense Department, seeking to comply with a U.S. Supreme Court finding that inhumane treatment was illegal, publicly repudiated Haynes's legal advice. Haynes told the senators he didn't believe that the policies he recommended could be classified as ``cruel, inhumane and degrading,'' as a Justice Department legal memo said.

I tore myself away from the hearings to call Alberto Mora, former general counsel of the U.S. Navy. Mora, a conservative Cuban-American who admired Ronald Reagan, says he repeatedly warned Haynes four years ago that he was ignoring the law and exposing the military to prosecution.

Profile in Courage

Mora, now general counsel of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s international division, didn't want to comment on the Haynes nomination. He did direct me to a memo he wrote to the inspector general of the Navy in July 2004 recounting his 18-month-long campaign to protect the military from charges of detainee abuse. For his efforts, Mora received a Profile in Courage Award at the John F. Kennedy Library this year.

The memo is a case study in how an administration can artfully sideline career lawyers who have the law on their side while ordering up tailored legal arguments from attorneys in the more politically attuned Office of Legal Counsel. Among those more compliant than Mora were John Yoo, now a professor at the University of California at Berkeley's law school, and Jay Bybee, confirmed for a federal judgeship in 2003 for his trouble.

Mora was surprised to find on Dec. 20, 2002, that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had put his signature on a memo approving ``the use of stress positions, hooding, isolation, deprivation of light and auditory stimuli, and use of detainee individual phobias (such as fear of dogs)'' in interrogation. That violated Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions as well as the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

No Joke

At the bottom of the memo, Rumsfeld, in his own handwriting, noted that forced standing could hardly be considered excessive when he routinely stood for eight to 10 hours a day. Although Mora realized this was likely another instance of the secretary's jocular style, he worried it could be misinterpreted by defense attorneys should enemy combatants ever come to trial.

This was the start of a long, hard slog for Mora. Sissies get nowhere in Rumsfeld's world, and Mora isn't one. He's a Republican hawk, who served in both Bush administrations. He says he told Haynes that if he himself were confronted with ``the classic ticking-bomb scenario where the terrorist being interrogated had knowledge of, say, an imminent nuclear weapon attack,'' he might administer torture himself, but he'd know he would be subject to prosecution later.

No Ticking Bomb

Not only was there no ticking bomb in Guantanamo two years after 9/11, but by adopting a policy at odds with the law, there were bound to be leaks by commanders unhappy with it. And since the policy had the secretary's blessing, there would also be no blaming ``rogue elements'' or the ``midnight shift'' for any acts of torture, as some officers would later try to do.

At first, Mora thought Haynes had ``too little time for careful legal analysis or measured consideration.'' Later, it would be clear Haynes was in on it from the start.

When nothing happened for three weeks, Mora went to see Haynes again, and then again. When he finally said he would put his concerns in writing -- fighting words from a uniformed lawyer to a civilian one -- Haynes acted.

He promised in mid-January 2003 that the techniques would be suspended pending a working group review of detainee interrogations.

Where Reforms Die

What Mora didn't realize is that a working group is where reforms go to die. The person named chairwoman, Air Force General Counsel Mary Walker, was in agreement with the president, whom she determined had virtually unlimited power to say what techniques were legal. When members of the working group objected to her draft proposals in March 2003, Walker promptly issued her policy, unbeknownst to them.

Fortunately, South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who sits on the Judiciary Committee, is familiar with Mora's memo. When Haynes tried to say the working group, including Mora, was on board with the final policy -- which still included dogs and isolation and stress positions -- Graham knew they were not. Graham said the process was a ``sham.''

That policy, now rejected by the Supreme Court, ``was entirely the product of Walker and Haynes,'' Graham said in an interview.

Graham, a former military lawyer himself, won't say how he's voting on Haynes, but my guess from our conversation is that he votes no, stymieing the nomination in committee. As a former Air Force officer, Graham has shown he's sensitive to civilians exposing the troops to criminal prosecution, turning good kids into bad ones, and getting promoted for doing so. In the military, Graham said, you should be ``held accountable for the things that happen on your watch.''

Haynes is now in a bind. He wouldn't have been nominated had he not gone along with Bush. But he may not be confirmed because he did.

Pay attention all who do only as you're told.

(Margaret Carlson, author of ``Anyone Can Grow Up: How George Bush and I Made It to the White House'' and former White House correspondent for Time magazine, is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.)

To contact the writer of this column: Margaret Carlson in Washington at mcarlson3@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: July 13, 2006 00:04 EDT