I heard a guest on NPR explaining all this "exemption" BS. What they have done is to create a complex of overlapping and contradictory laws, 'findings', 'rulings'...etc, the sum of which is that anyone who does commit or approve torture and gets called on it can find all sorts of legal defenses based on the old Nazi "I vas chust following orders" defense at Nuremburg and the even older "things are done in "wartime" which aren't permissible in local police depts."

It is all a case of CYAWP...covering your ass with paper...Everyone concerned gets a big, complex set of pre-arranged excuses....and I am ashamed to see my government going to such idiotic extremes for such dubious reasons. If all the Muslims in the world had invaded our shores and started killing people in the streets, I could at least understand, if not approve....but righteously creating bureaucratic defenses for one wrong to whitewash another....no, thank you....