The draft report ... deals with a range of legal issues related to interrogations, offering definitions of the degree of pain or psychological manipulation that could be considered lawfull. But at its core is an exceptional argument that because nothing is more important than "obtaining intelligence vital to the protection of untold thousands of American citizens," normal strictures on torture might not apply.

According to Bush administration officials, the report was compiled by a working group appointed by the Defense Department's general counsel, William J. Haynes II.

Air Force General Counsel Mary Walker headed the group, which comprised top civilian and uniformed lawyers from each military branch and consulted with the Justice Department, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Defense Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies. It isn't known if President Bush has ever seen the report.

Civilian or military personnel accused of torture or other war crimes have several potential defenses, including the "necessity" of using such methods to extract information to head off an attack, or "superior orders," sometimes known as the Nuremberg defense: namely that the accused was acting pursuant to an order and, as the Nuremberg tribunal put it, no moral choice was in fact possible."

The president, despite domestic and international laws constraining the use of torture, has the authority as commander in chief to approve almost any physical or psychological actions during interrogation, up to and including torture, the report argued...

A military lawyer who helped prepare the report said that political appointees heading the working group sought to assign the president virtually unlimited authority on matters of torture - to assert "presidential power at its absolute apex," the lawyer said...

The working-group report elaborated the Bush administration's view that the president has virtually unlimited power to wage war as he sees fit, and neither Congress, the courts nor international law can interfere...

Citing confidential Justice Department opinions drafted after Sept. 11, 2001, the report advised that the executive branch of the government had "sweeping" powers to act as it sees fit because "national security decisions require the unity of purpose and energy in action that characterize the presidency rather than Congress"...

To protect subordinates should they be charged with torture, the memo advised that Mr. Bush issue a "presidential directive or other writing" that could serve as evidence, since authority to set aside the laws is "inherent in the president."

Even in wartime, the President's authority to act is limited by the Constitution, and where Congress has specifically proscribed activity. Advice to the contrary is wrong, and any actions which follow this advice are probably unlawful as well.

...here's how the Pentagon's shysters split the torture hairs: "The infliction of pain or suffering, whether it is physical or mental, is insufficient to amount to torture,' the report advises. Such suffering must be `severe,' the lawyers advise, and they rely on a dictionary definition to suggest that it `must be of such a high level of intensity that the pain is difficult for the subject to endure.'

The report goes on to say that Congress has no business trying to regulate whether U.S. soldiers or other officials torture prisoners, since that would violate the commander-in-chief's constitutional power to wage war. "Sometimes the greater good for society will be accompanied by violating the literal language of the criminal law," says the report.

So the right to set aside law is "inherent in the president". That claim alone should stop everyone in their tracks and prompt a serious consideration of the safety of the American republic under this president. It is the very definition of a constitutional monarchy, let alone a constitutional republic, that the law is superior to the executive, not the other way around. This is the essence of what the rule of law means -- a government of laws, not men, and all that.

Now, we know that presidents sometimes break laws and they frequently bend them, if only in cases where the laws don't seem to anticipate a situation the president finds himself confronting. There is even an argument that the president can refuse to enforce laws he deems unconstitutional.

But there is no power inherent in the president simply to set aside the law. Richard Nixon famously argued that "when the president does it that means that it is not illegal." But the constitutional rulings emerging out of Watergate said otherwise. And history has been equally unkind to his claim.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Test subjects can't see the invisible beam from the Pentagon's new Star Trek-like weapon as it heats the water molecules in their bodies. But no one has withstood the pain it produces for more than three seconds.

People who volunteered to stand in front of the directed energy beam say they felt as if they were on fire. When they stepped aside, the pain disappeared instantly.

The long-range column of electromagnetic wave energy is known as the "Active Denial System" (ADS) for its ability to prevent an aggressor from advancing. Senior military officials, who plan to deliver the device for troop evaluation this fall, say years of testing have produced no sign it will lead to health effects beyond perhaps causing skin to temporarily redden.

It is among the most potent of a new generation of futuristic "less-than-lethal" weapons being developed by the Defense Department -- tools that could dramatically alter the way soldiers fight wars and police control riots.

... When the beam hits a person, it penetrates 1/64th of an inch beneath the skin and heats water molecules to 130 degrees in less than a second.

"It tricks the pain sensors into thinking they're on fire," said Rich Garcia, a spokesman for the Air Force Research Laboratory at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, N.M.

Garcia knows firsthand. He was among hundreds of test volunteers who stood with their backs facing the device.

"They did a full body back shot," he said. "It hit in the small of my back first. For the first millisecond, it just felt like the skin was warming up. Then it got warmer and warmer and you felt like it was on fire."

He said he lunged away.

"As soon as you're away from that beam your skin returns to normal and there is no pain," Garcia said. "I thought to myself, 'Why, you wimp. You know it's not causing any damage. You'll be able to override it.' Each of the next three times, I was on there a little bit longer ... about two seconds. It felt like my hair was on fire."

... Maj. Jonathan Drummond of the Air Force's Directed Energy Bioeffects Division noted that the weapon could provide U.S. forces "with a nonlethal capability in military operations other than war." Among possible uses, he listed peacekeeping, humanitarian operations and crowd control.

Marine Capt. Dan McSweeney, a spokesman for the Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate, pointed to "instances in Iraq where crowd situations have unfortunately ended in violence" and death.

"It seems fundamentally a weapon that's designed to create a great deal of pain and fear," said Johnson, the center's executive director. "The concern I would have is ... once this kind of technology is available and there's a perception that it's safe and nonlethal, it seems like a natural device to be used in interrogations."