torture-gate?

Daily Kos :: Homeland Nominee Chertoff on Torture: Many Questions: "Michael Chertoff, who has been picked by President Bush to be the homeland security secretary, advised the Central Intelligence Agency on the legality of coercive interrogation methods on terror suspects under the federal anti-torture statute, current and former administration officials said this week.
Depending on the circumstances, he told the intelligence agency, some coercive methods could be legal, but he advised against others, the officials said.

Mr. Chertoff's previously undisclosed involvement in evaluating how far interrogators could go took place in 2002 and 2003 when he headed the Justice Department's criminal division. The advice came in the form of responses to agency inquiries asking whether C.I.A. employees risked being charged with crimes if particular interrogation techniques were used on specific detainees.
This is important on a number of levels. While Homeland Security has no charge regarding foreign terrorist activity - can Homeland Security 'render' terrorism suspects to the CIA? This is important because Alberto Gonzales has stated that the CIA is not bound by the prohibitions of the UN Convention on Torture. Can Homeland Security 'render' to the CIA for 'interrogation'? Many questions must be asked of and answered by Chertoff.

Here's a particular question: is the following true:

In responding, Mr. Chertoff's division said that whether the techniques were impermissible depended on the standards outlined in an August 2002 memorandum from the Office of Legal Counsel that has since been disclosed and which defined torture narrowly. That memorandum, signed by Jay S. Bybee, then the head of the legal counsel's office, said that inflicted pain, for example, qualified as torture only if it was of a level equivalent to organ failure or imminent death.

Cuz if it is, we got a problem. "