This was last week's news but got little publicity:

In March 2003, Bush's deputy assistant secretary John Yoo advised

Maiming a detainee, defined as disabling or cutting out the nose, eye, ear, lip, tongue, or limb, is deemed a defensible interrogation tactic if the military can prove it had no advance intention to maim.

In other words, if a highly trained Interrogator gouged out a suspect's eye on the spur of the moment, that was tikity-boo.

Allegedly the memo was withdrawn after 9 months, probably in time for Christmas

I have posted a link to the whole 81 page memo in my blog Pieces of Hell on this site

God Bless America