The Christian Science Monitor Mar 8, 11:41 AM EST
Bush Explains Veto of Waterboarding Bill
By JENNIFER LOVEN Associated Press Writer
WA****NGTON (AP) -- President Bush said Saturday he vetoed
legislation that would ban the CIA from using harsh
interrogation methods such as waterboarding to break suspected
terrorists because it would end practices that have prevented
attacks.
"The bill Congress sent me would take away one of the most
valuable tools in the war on terror," Bush said in his weekly
radio address taped for broadcast Saturday. "So today I vetoed
it," Bush said. The bill provides guidelines for intelligence
activities for the year and includes the interrogation
requirement. It passed the House in December and the Senate
last month.
"This is no time for Congress to abandon practices that have a
proven track record of keeping America safe," the president
said.
Sup****ters of the legislation say it would preserve the United
States' ability to collect critical intelligence and raise
country's moral standing abroad.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Congress would work to
override Bush's veto next week. "In the final analysis, our
ability to lead the world will depend not only on our military
might, but on our moral authority," said Pelosi, D-Calif.
But based on the margin of passage in each chamber, it would
be difficult for the Democratic-controlled Congress to turn
back the veto. It takes a two-thirds majority, and the House
vote was 222-199 and the Senate's was 51-45.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Bush often warns
against ignoring the advice of U.S. commanders on the ground
in Iraq. Yet the president has rejected the Army Field Manual,
which recognizes that harsh interrogation tactics elicit
unreliable information, said Reid, D-Nev.
"Democrats will continue working to reverse the damage
President Bush has caused to our standing in the world," Reid
said.
Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human
Rights Watch, said Bush "will go down in history as the
torture president" for defying Congress and allowing the CIA
to use interrogation techniques "that any reasonable observer
would call torture."
"The Bush administration continues to insist that CIA and
other nonmilitary interrogators are not bound by the military
rules and has re****tedly given CIA interrogators the green
light to use a range of so-called 'enhanced' interrogation
techniques, including prolonged sleep deprivation, painful
stress positions, and exposure to extreme cold," Daskal said.
"Although waterboarding is not currently approved for use by
the CIA, Attorney General Michael Mukasey has refused to take
it off the table for the future."
The intelligence bill would limit CIA interrogators to the 19
techniques allowed for use by military questioners. The Army
field manual in 2006 banned using methods such as
waterboarding or sensory deprivation on uncooperative
prisoners.
Bush said the CIA must retain use of "specialized
interrogation procedures" that the military does not need. The
military methods are designed for questioning "lawful
combatants captured on the battlefield," while intelligence
professionals are dealing with "hardened terrorists" who have
been trained to resist the techniques in the Army manual, the
president said.
"We created alternative procedures to question the most
dangerous al-Qaida operatives, particularly those who might
have knowledge of attacks planned on our homeland," Bush said.
"If we were to shut down this program and restrict the CIA to
methods in the field manual, we could lose vital information
from senior al-Qaida terrorists, and that could cost American
lives."
The 19 interrogation techniques include the "good cop/bad
cop" routine; making prisoners think they are in another
country's custody; and separating a prisoner from others for
up to 30 days.
Among the techniques the field manual prohibits are:
-hooding prisoners or putting duct tape across their eyes.
-stripping prisoners ****d.
-forcing prisoners to perform or mimic ***ual acts.
-beating, burning or physically hurting them in other ways.
-subjecting prisoners to hypothermia or mock executions.
It does not allow food, water and medical treatment to be
withheld. Dogs may not be used in any aspect of interrogation.
But waterboarding is the most high-profile and contentious
method in question.
It involves strapping a person down and pouring water over his
cloth-covered face to create the sensation of drowning. It has
been traced back hundreds of years to the Spanish Inquisition
and is condemned by nations around the world and human rights
organizations as torture.
The Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 includes a provision
barring cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment for all
detainees, including CIA prisoners, in U.S. custody. Many
people believe that covers waterboarding.
There are concerns that the use of waterboarding would
undermine the U.S. human rights efforts overseas and could
place Americans at greater risk of being tortured when
captured.
The military specifically prohibited waterboarding in 2006.
The CIA also prohibited the practice in 2006 and says it has
not been used since three prisoners encountered it in 2003.
But the administration has refused to rule definitively on
whether it is torture. Bush has said many times that his
administration does not torture.
The White House says waterboarding remains among the
interrogation methods potentially available to the CIA.
"Because the danger remains, we need to ensure our
intelligence officials have all the tools they need to stop
the terrorists," Bush said.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BUSH_TORTURE?
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for whatsoever doth make manifest is light.
The light ****neth in darkness;
and the darkness comprehended it not.
The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single,
thy whole body shall be full of light.
But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness.
If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that
darkness!
Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead,
and Christ shall give thee light.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
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