"'Alberto Gonzales role in the development of policies that ultimately led to the Abu Ghraib prison scandals in Iraq is deeply troubling,' said Ralph Neas, president of the liberal People for the American Way. He said senators should question Gonzales closely on these matters."

"They (the Administration) began with the plausible argument that the Geneva Conventions were anachronistic in an age of asymmetrical, non-state warfare. Al Qaeda didn't wear uniforms or fight according to the laws of war, they reasoned, and so they were not necessarily entitled to the conventions' protections. But the lawyers - including White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, Defense Department general counsel William Haynes II, Vice President Cheney's counsel David Addington, and Jay Bybee of the Justice Department (who now sits on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals) - went further. They advised the president to sign a blanket statement of policy that the men captured in Afghanistan would not be subject to the Geneva Conventions, and that by executive fiat, they would all be declared 'unlawful enemy combatants,' a category that does not exist in international law. White House, Justice Department and Pentagon lawyers also pushed President Bush to sign a secret finding on Feb. 7, 2002, that would have far-reaching consequences for the nation and the world. 'I... determine that none of the provisions of Geneva apply to our conflict with al Qaeda in Afghanistan or elsewhere throughout the world,' this document determined, adding that the White House also had 'the authority under the Constitution to suspend Geneva as between the United States and Afghanistan, but I decline to exercise that authority at this time.' For all intents and purposes, these memoranda gutted the Geneva Conventions."

"It also doesn't help Bush's cause that Gonzales was counsel for Enron as well."