This just in from The Guardian:

Attorney General-designate Michael Mukasey said Wednesday the president doesn't have the authority to use torture techniques against terrorism suspects, a stance not taken by predecessor Alberto Gonzales and considered key to the nominee's confirmation.

Mukasey repudiated a 2002 memo by then-Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee that said the president has the power to issue orders that violate the Geneva Conventions as well as international and U.S. laws prohibiting torture. The memo was later disavowed and overridden by an executive order governing interrogation and treatment of terrorism suspects, which allowed harsh questioning but included a vaguely worded ban on cruel and inhuman treatment.

"The Bybee memo, to paraphrase a French diplomat, was worse than a sin, it was a mistake. It was unnecessary,'' Mukasey, 66, told the Senate Judiciary Committee under questioning by Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

As GII's director, David Devlin-Foltz, commented on hearing this news: "Disavowal is an excellent first step. Now if we can only stop torturing too." True enough: the public relations/public diplomacy value of this statement will quickly invert itself well into the negative range if/when it comes out that, as was the case with wiretaps, the administration continues undeterred regardless of what the Department of Justice says.