Goldsmith: "More than two and less than 10" key Bush Admin opinions had to be withdrawn or redone

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/09/mrs-ashcroft-an.html

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At age 41, the former University of Chicago law professor Goldsmith joined the Justice Department in the fall of 2003 as the head of the Office of Legal Counsel, a little-known but extremely powerful position as the chief advisor to the president and attorney general on the legality of their policies.

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"In these critical national security areas, I bent over backwards to try to find ways to allow the president to do what he wants to do, but I couldn't always do so," he told ABC News, saying he was considered "a pain" by some in the administration.

His biggest critic, Goldsmith says, was Vice President Dick Cheney's former lawyer and now chief of staff, David Addington, who, from behind the scenes, "designed all of the administration’s counterterrorism policies."

"He was angry at me once for a decision of mine, and he told me that if I ruled that way, 'the blood of the 100,000 people who die in the next attack would be on my hands,'" he said.

Goldsmith revealed to ABC News for the first time how many key opinions the Bush administration relied on had to be withdrawn or redone.

"More than two and less than 10. A lot of them are classified," Goldsmith revealed. "Basically every single opinion that I modified, the only reason I modified it was because I thought it was so far off the mark."