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If this post from Josh Marshall is to be believed - and for the record, I think it is - there's apparently a solid case for it. For example:

‘Torture is prohibited by law throughout the United States. It is categorically denounced as a matter of policy and as a tool of state authority. Every act constituting torture under the Convention constitutes a criminal offense under the law of the United States. No official of the government, federal, state or local, civilian or military, is authorized to commit or to instruct anyone else to commit torture. Nor may any official condone or tolerate torture in any form. No exceptional circumstances may be invoked as a justification of torture. US law contains no provision permitting otherwise prohibited acts of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment to be employed on grounds of exigent circumstances (for example, during a ‘state of public emergency’) or on orders from a superior officer or public authority, and the protective mechanisms of an independent judiciary are not subject to suspension.’ (Report of the United States to the UN Committee against Torture, October 15, 1999, UN Doc. CAT/C/28/Add.5, February 9, 2000, para. 6.)

Got that? "No official of the government, federal, state or local, civilian or military, is authorized to commit or to instruct anyone else to commit torture."

UPDATE: Want more? read this. I said it before the election (damn Blogger for their idiotic new search function. I can't find the link), and I'll say it again now. The scandals that will break during Bush's second term are going to make Watergate look small. I say that with no joy or glee whatsoever. But they're coming. And they will be huge.

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