A memo about harsh interrogation techniques shows that a former US state department official strongly dissented from the Bush administration‘s secret legal view in 2005 that an international treaty against torture did not apply to CIA interrogations in foreign countries.

Until now, the February 2006 analysis by Philip Zelikow has been a high-level, classified internal critique of the Bush administration‘s controversial interrogation policies. At the time he wrote his criticism, Zelikow was secretary of state Condoleezza Rice‘s representative on terrorism issues to the national security council‘s deputies committee.