John Yoo and the Department of Justice would find a way to make the UN Convention Against Torture inapplicable to the War on Terror. They would say that the doctrine was not specific in its meaning like “severe”. Therefore, the Department of Justice would take it upon themselves to create a definition and interpretation of what these different provisions meant. In a memorandum sent to the White House the Justice Department would explain that torture essentially meant that either the victim had to lose bodily function, or death in order to be considered tortured. Critics would argue that this was a way for interrogators to use harsh and often inhumane techniques to retrieve often times useless information. Some also said that by applying this view on torture to Saddam Hussein’s prisons made what he was doing justifiable. However, this memo was placed into policy.
