October 05, 2007
Bush: 'This Government Does Not Torture People'
UPDATED.
The White House today signaled that it will not accede to Congress' demands for transparency on two secret memos on terrorism detainees, insisting it does not engage in torture and that key members had already learned all they needed to know.
"They have been briefed to appropriate members of Congress on the Intelligence Committee. But they are classified for a reason and they are secret," press secretary Dana Perino said during the daily briefing. "One of the reasons they are secret is because they need to be. They need to be cloaked in the classified system so that we can keep that information private so that we're not signaling to our enemies exactly what our techniques are."
Earlier, President Bush gave his first public response to revelations that CIA officers may be using tactics that might qualify as torture in a program secretly endorsed by the Justice Department.
"This government does not torture people. We stick to U.S. law and our international obligations," Bush said in a brief statement to the press this morning.
The president's comments came a day after the New York Times reported that the White House had used secret Justice Department opinions to validate extreme interrogation methods that do not seem to fall under the U.N. Geneva Conventions on prisoner treatment. The revelations angered senators who had been led to believe that a chastened administration had brought all interrogation tactics in line with the Conventions. If proven true, the Times report means that the administration used DOJ to secretly justify tactics that might be considered torture by other nations.
"Now, there are some questions about a program that I put in motion to detain and question extremists and terrorists," the president said. "I have put this program in place for a reason, and that is to protect the American people. When we find somebody who has information" about a terrorist plot, "you bet we're going to detain them and you bet we're going to question them."
The Senate and House Judiciary Committees are demanding that DOJ hand the memos over. Perino said that only members of the Senate Intelligence Committee should be briefed on classified interrogation methods. But Chairman Jay Rockefeller disputed Perino's claim that the information had been disclosed to the Intelligence Committee.
"The administration can't have it both ways. I'm tired of these games," the West Virginia Democrat said. "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."
According to the Times, slapping and waterboarding -- a technique that simulates drowning -- are allowed during interrogation of terrorism suspects. Perino said that the administration would not disclose the CIA's methods, citing national security.
"You want to know the techniques that we use so we can tell [al-Qaida] exactly what we're going to do? That's absurd," she told reporters.
The White House has generally been unreceptive to such demands for information, particularly when they pertain to the war on terror. Bush's longtime critics will likely doubt his claim that the government "does not torture people," but the bigger issue is what the administration's definition of torture is. Perino refused to lay out what methods qualify as torture, only saying repeatedly, "We do not torture."
"There are highly trained professionals questioning these extremists and terrorists," Bush said during his press conference. "In other words, we've got professionals that are trained in this kind of work to get information that will protect the American people. And by the way, we have gotten information" that has led to actionable intelligence.
The CIA reportedly used waterboarding, a technique arguably outlawed by the Geneva Conventions but apparently sanctioned by DOJ, during its questioning of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, al-Qaida's former No. 3. Not only did Mohammed detail his planning of the 9/11 attacks and confess to beheading Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, but he also named several al-Qaida operatives involved in plots against the U.S. and other nations.
Critics of such extreme tactics argue there ought to be a bright line in how the U.S. treats all detainees. Without one, Washington would be hard-pressed to go after other countries that torture anyone, including American citizens. Republican Sen. John McCain, who was himself tortured as a POW in Vietnam, has led the charge in forcing the White House to draw that line.
Bush nominated his then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales to the attorney general post following a rebellion in DOJ on the administration's anti-terror policies. According to the Times report, Gonzales signed off on the memos, and former Deputy Attorney General James Comey told colleagues they would all be "ashamed" when the secret memos became public.
Under pressure from McCain and others in his party, Bush signed the Detainee Treatment Act in 2005. But the president has operated on a sweeping view of executive power, and has issued signing statements that allow the government to sidestep the law in the name of national security.
Gonzales resigned on Aug. 27 following a bruising year for DOJ. Bush's choice for his successor, Michael Mukasey, is due before the Senate Judiciary Committee in about two weeks. What was expected to be a smooth-sailing confirmation hearing could well be anything but.
Posted at 5:20 PM
Posted to:
Al-Qaida, Alberto Gonzales, Bush Administration, Detainees, Guantanamo Bay, Michael Mukasey, Military, President Bush, Terrorism
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