BUSH ADMINISTRATION NEEDS TO COME CLEAN TO AMERICAN PUBLIC ON TORTURE
Common Dreams
October 5, 2007
Original Link
WASHINGTON, DC - Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) called on the Bush Administration to come clean to the American people and stop condoning the use of torture.
“This government does not torture people,” President Bush claimed this morning in a brief news conference. “You know, we…stick to U.S. law and our international obligations.”
Yesterday, The New York Times reported that despite the Justice Department’s 2004 public legal opinion that torture was “abhorrent,” only a year later the Justice Department under then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales issued a secret opinion that permitted the “harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the CIA.”
“The Justice Department tried pulling a cloak over Americans’ eyes by declaring torture ‘abhorrent’ in a public declaration, and then secretly permitting it,” Kucinich said.
“How can the President say ‘we do not torture,’ when at the same time he is condoning it?” Kucinich asked. “This type of deception and brutality is costing America our moral standing and our friendships all over the world.
“President Bush needs to come clean to the American people. Torture is not an American value. Congress needs to confront the President over the Administration’s repulsive use of torture and end this abhorrent technique once and for all.”
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WHITE HOUSE ON DEFENSIVE OVER TORTURE MEMOS
By Tim Harper
The Toronto Star
October 5, 2007
Original Link
WASHINGTON-The Bush administration found itself in familiar territory yesterday, facing accusations it was covertly torturing terrorism suspects and holding them in secret “black sites.
The White House confirmed the existence of two secret memos, first reported in The New York Times, that appear to authorize the Central Intelligence Agency the ability to use its most extreme interrogation techniques, including simulated drowning known as “water-boarding.”
But it said the memos did not circumvent a U.S. law prohibiting “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment of suspects or an official 2004 policy that declared torture “abhorrent.”
Questions about harsh interrogation techniques have become a hallmark of the Bush administration and most of those questions continue to swirl around former attorney general Alberto Gonzales who, the reports said, approved the legal opinions to bring policy more in line with the wishes of U.S. President George W. Bush.
Gonzales was driven from office last month amid charges he had politicized the justice department and compromised its independence in his zeal to accommodate his mentor, Bush.
The man nominated to succeed him, Michael Mukasey, faces a Senate confirmation hearing later this month and the question of torture policy seems certain to be raised at those hearings.
“The policy of the United States is not to torture,” said White House spokesperson Dana Perino.
“The president has not authorized it, he will not authorize it. But he had done everything within the corners of the law to make sure that we prevent another attack on this country, which is what we have done in this administration.”
Democrats in the House of Representatives demanded the two memos be released and promised to probe administration interrogation policy.
They said they would call Steven Bradbury, the acting chief of legal counsel at the U.S. Justice Department, identified by the Times as the author of the memos.
The revelations immediately became fodder in the Democratic presidential race.
Illinois Senator Barack Obama called the revelations an “outrageous betrayal” of this country’s core values.
“Torture is how you create enemies, not how you defeat them,” he said in a statement.
“Torture is how you get bad information, not good intelligence. Torture is how you set back America’s standing in the world, not how you strengthen it.”
Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd said the law made it “crystal clear” that torture was illegal.
“It is `abhorrent’ that the Bush administration would publicly disavow torture, while its office of legal counsel is secretly interpreting settled law to reach the opposite conclusion,” Dodd said.
John McCain, the Arizona senator and Republican presidential hopeful who is a former prisoner of war, said water-boarding is specifically outlawed under the 2005 law. He was instrumental in the passage of that law, and his amendment prohibited the use of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
McCain has stood firm against an administration, led by Vice President Dick Cheney, which wanted unfettered presidential powers to approve harsh interrogation.
Human-rights advocates said Congress must use the upcoming confirmation hearings to put an end to any back-door torture.
“Congress should be clear - it will not confirm another attorney general who advises the president that it is okay to break the law,” said Joanne Mariner of Human Rights Watch.
The Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents many of the more than 300 detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, said its clients were being tortured even as the Bush administration was publicly denouncing the practice.
“Torture is illegal, immoral, and it doesn’t work. Detainee torture policies that produce faulty intelligence and exaggerated confessions result in innocent men being locked up,” said Vincent Warren of the rights centre.
The Reuters news agency, citing an unnamed U.S. counterterrorism official, said a high-ranking Al Qaeda terrorist known as Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi had been held in a secret site in late 2006.
He has since been transferred to Guantanamo Bay.
Bush acknowledged the secret detention sites in September 2006, when he transferred 14 detainees from the secret prisons to Guantanamo Bay.
Their existence, first revealed in 2005 by The Washington Post, sparked an international outcry, with some European officials charging the United States was illegally torturing people on their soil.
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BUSH DEFENDS TREATMENT OF TERRORISM SUSPECTS
By David Johnston and Scott Shane
New York Times
October 5, 2007
Original Link
WASHINGTON - President Bush defended his administration’s treatment of terrorism suspects today, but the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee accused the president of keeping Congress in the dark about how those suspects are interrogated.
“This government does not torture people,” Mr. Bush said. “You know, we stick to U.S. law and our international obligations.”
The interrogation techniques “have been fully disclosed to appropriate members of Congress,” Mr. Bush said at an Oval Office meeting on economic issues. “The American people expect their government to take action to protect them from further attack. And that’s exactly what this government is doing, and that’s exactly what we’ll continue to do.”
The disclosure of secret Justice Department legal opinions on interrogation has set off a bitter round of debate over the treatment of terrorism suspects in American custody and whether Congress has been adequately informed of legal policies.
Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, the West Virginia Democrat who heads the intelligence committee, scoffed at the president’s assertions that his administration has been forthcoming.
“The administration can’t have it both ways,” the senator said today. “I’m tired of these games. They can’t say that Congress has been fully briefed while refusing to turn over key documents used to justify the legality of the program. The reality is, the administration refused to disclose the program to the full Committee for five years, and they have refused to turn over key legal documents since day one.”
Democrats on Capitol Hill demanded to see the classified memorandums, disclosed Thursday by The New York Times, that gave the Central Intelligence Agency expansive approval in 2005 for harsh interrogation techniques.
Senator Rockefeller wrote to the acting attorney general, Peter D. Keisler, on Thursday asking for copies of all opinions on interrogation since 2004.
“I find it unfathomable that the committee tasked with oversight of the C.I.A.’s detention and interrogation program would be provided more information by The New York Times than by the Department of Justice,” Mr. Rockefeller wrote.
The ranking Republican on the panel, Senator Christopher S. Bond of Missouri, said Thursday night in a statement that the committee had been briefed on the administration’s “legal justifications” for interrogation.
Mr. Bond said he understood that the administration did not want to turn over the opinions themselves because they had confidential legal advice.
Administration officials have confirmed the existence of the classified opinions but said they did not condone torture. Again today, the White House press secretary, Dana Perino, was bombarded with questions about the secret opinions.
“We meet the laws, and we also meet our international obligations,” she said. “There’s a public document that interprets the statute that is from the Office of Legal Opinion from the Justice Department. It’s on the Web site for anybody to read. Any additional documents are classified for a reason, because they have to deal with interrogation techniques.” Ms. Perino was asked to define the line between harsh but legal interrogation and torture.
“The experts have debated that,” she responded, again referring questioners to the public document on the Office of Legal Opinion’s Web site. “I’m not going to get into specifics. I’m not going to get into the specific tactics.”
One 2005 secret opinion gave the Justice Department’s most authoritative legal approval to the harshest agency techniques, including head slapping, exposure to cold and simulated drowning, even when used in combination.
The second opinion declared that under some circumstances, such techniques were not “cruel, inhuman or degrading,” a category of treatment that Congress banned in December 2005.
Administration officials said Thursday that there was no contradiction between the still-secret rulings and an opinion made public by the Justice Department in December 2004 that declared torture “abhorrent” and appeared to retreat from the administration’s earlier assertion of broad presidential authority to conduct harsh interrogations.
At a briefing, Ms. Perino said that it was “quite a testament to this country” that six years after the Sept. 11 attacks “we are still having a debate” about treating prisoners, but that “we don’t torture them.”
President Bush, she added, “has done everything within the corners of the law to make sure that we prevent another attack on this country.”
Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who is chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said the 2005 opinions had “reinstated a secret regime by, in essence, reinterpreting the law in secret.” Mr. Leahy said his panel had sought information on the opinions on interrogation for two years without success.
Mr. Leahy also said his panel would hold confirmation hearings on Oct. 17 on Michael B. Mukasey’s nomination as attorney general. Several senators said they would closely question Mr. Mukasey, a retired federal judge, at the hearing about his views on interrogation.
Mr. Leahy and Representative John Conyers Jr., a Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, also demanded that the administration turn over the 2005 opinions.
Mr. Conyers wrote a letter to Mr. Keisler saying, “The alleged content of the opinions and the fact that they have been kept secret from Congress are extremely troubling.”
The letter, also signed by Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York, asked the Justice Department to make available for a hearing Steven G. Bradbury, acting head of the Office of Legal Counsel, who signed the opinions.
In an interview, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said that in light of the administration’s apparent retreat from its legal embrace of the harshest tactics in 2004, the 2005 opinions “are more than surprising.”
“I think they’re shocking,” Mr. Specter said.
He added members of Congress voted to ban “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” in December 2005 without knowing that the Justice Department had already decided that the C.I.A.’s methods did not violate that standard. “I think the administration had a duty to inform Congress about these opinions,” Mr. Specter said.
Intelligence officials have said the agency has dropped some of its harshest practices, including the simulated drowning called waterboarding. But the 2005 memorandums show that the administration has secretly continued to maintain that their use would be lawful.
A senior administration official who insisted on anonymity said the opinion on the “combined effects” of different techniques was approved in May 2005.
The opinion that the methods were not cruel or inhuman was approved later in 2005, the official said. Officials have said both opinions remain in effect.
Both documents were written by the Office of Legal Counsel after Alberto R. Gonzales became attorney general. Mr. Gonzales’s arrival effectively ended a rebellion in the department in 2004 by lawyers who had found fault with the legal justifications for interrogation and surveillance.
In a statement, a spokesman for the department, Brian Roehrkasse, said he could not comment on classified legal advice, but said any department opinions were consistent with the administration’s “strong opposition to torture.”
Mr. Roehrkasse also expressed the department’s support for Mr. Bradbury, whose nomination to be permanent head of the Legal Counsel office has been blocked by Senate Democrats since June 2005. Mr. Roehrkasse said Mr. Bradbury had “worked diligently to ensure that the authority of the office is employed in a careful and prudent manner.”
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ARTICLE THAT TRIGGERED CURRENT TORTURE CONTROVERSY:
SECRET U.S. ENDORSEMENT OF SEVERE INTERROGATIONSBy Scott Shane, David Johnston and James Risen
New York Times
October 4, 2007