Bush's Dangerous
Torture(d) Stance

MASSIMO CALABRESI / Time Magazine 5oct2007

Segregation cells at Abu Ghraib, August 2005. Richard Ross / WPN

WASHINGTON — Every time the Bush administration is accused of torture the response from the White House is immediate and unequivocal. When the New York Times reported on its front page Thursday that the Justice Department had issued a secret legal opinion in 2005 approving a combination of particularly tough interrogation tactics, White House spokesperson Dana Perino said, "The bottom line is that we do not use torture." When Congress and the White House battled over detainee rights in 2006, Vice President Dick Cheney argued that techniques like simulated drowning didn't amount to torture. And last August, after the New Yorker reported the latest in a string of private memos sent to the U.S. government by the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) asserting that U.S. interrogation techniques were "tantamount to torture", President Bush said curtly, "We don't torture."

The Administration says its firm, absolutist assertions are designed to protect U.S. troops in case they are captured: by insisting the U.S. doesn't torture, the hope is others will feel compelled to refrain from doing so. But in practice, the administration's declarations have exactly the opposite effect. It's not just that Washington has very little credibility on the issue, given all the evidence linking the U.S. to torture that has surfaced in recent years, including the opinion of the international body charged with observing detainee treatment. More importantly, by continuing to battle with the ICRC and other international organizations over the definition of torture, the Bush administration is undermining those groups and diminishing their chances of protecting captured U.S. troops in the future.

To be fair, determining what constitutes torture is harder than you might think. The U.N. convention on torture, to which the U.S. is a signatory, says it is the infliction of severe mental or physical pain to obtain information. The administration refuses to confirm specific interrogation techniques because it says opponents can train against them if they know what to expect. Extensive reporting, however, has shown that the U.S. has used techniques including raising and lowering temperatures in detainees' cells, withholding food, isolation, sleep deprivation with light or noise, forcing detainees into stress positions, head-slapping and water-boarding or simulated drowning. Critics like Human Rights First, Human Rights Watch and the Council of Europe, among others, say that some of these techniques — individually or in combination — can amount to torture.

The organization whose definition of torture matters more than any other, however, is the International Committee for the Red Cross. Under the Geneva Conventions, the ICRC is given the unique role of inspecting detention facilities and confronting captors who abuse detainees. Last year, the ICRC inspected some 2,200 places of detention that held an estimated 450,000 detainees.

In order to get access to some of the worst dungeons in the world, the ICRC maintains a near absolute policy of not disclosing their findings. Their ability to pressure and sway abusive captors rests on the moral authority they have developed over more than 140 years as the undisputed arbiter of appropriate treatment of prisoners.

However, the Red Cross' findings on U.S. detainee treatment have leaked repeatedly, presumably from opponents of the administration's interrogation techniques who had access to them. In those reports, the ICRC has consistently and repeatedly asserted that some U.S. techniques amount to torture. ICRC spokesman Florian Westphal declined to comment on the reports but said, "The dialogue between the ICRC and the U.S. on all matters of detention has always been very vigorous. Where we felt that there were things that needed to be addressed, we did so."

It's not a minor dispute. Every time Bush asserts that the U.S does not torture, he is not just undermining his own credibility, he's diminishing the Red Cross too. "It's a downward spiral," says Elisa Massimino, Washington Director of Human Rights First. "If I'm the ICRC and I'm visiting [abused] prisoners in, say, Egypt, the Egyptians will say 'What are you going to do? The U.S. says this isn't torture'."

Worse, if a dictator in some god-forsaken part of the world captures an American soldier, the U.S. may protest. But it is the Red Cross' assertions of a violation that will be the immediate point of pressure on the captors. "What it virtually guaranteed is that dictatorships will cite the U.S. government's own arguments to defend themselves and that will make it harder for the ICRC and everyone else to condemn and shame those governments," says Tom Malinowski, a spokesman for Human Rights Watch.

The Bush administration does not recognize that it's not just American credibility on the line. Because bolstering the authority of the Red Cross is in the long-term interest of the America and its troops, the U.S. needs to get a clean bill of health from the ICRC on detainee treatment and make sure everyone knows it. Until then, every assertion by Bush or his aides that the U.S. doesn't torture will continue to undermine the organization best positioned to protect captured U.S. troops.

source: 5oct2007

Bush Says US 'Does Not Torture'

JENNIFER LOVEN / AP 5oct2007

President Bush defended his administration's detention and interrogation policies for terrorism suspects on Friday, saying they are both successful and lawful.

"When we find somebody who may have information regarding a potential attack on America, you bet we're going to detain them, and you bet we're going to question them," he said during a hastily called appearance in the Oval Office. "The American people expect us to find out information, actionable intelligence so we can help protect them. That's our job."

Bush was referring to a report on two secret memos in 2005 that authorized extreme interrogation tactics against terror suspects. "This government does not torture people," the president said.

The two Justice Department legal opinions were disclosed in Thursday's editions of The New York Times, which reported that the first 2005 legal opinion authorized the use of head slaps, freezing temperatures and simulated drownings, known as waterboarding, while interrogating terror suspects, and was issued shortly after then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales took over the Justice Department.

That secret opinion, which explicitly allowed using the painful methods in combination, came months after a December 2004 opinion in which the Justice Department publicly declared torture "abhorrent" and the administration seemed to back away from claiming authority for such practices.

A second Justice opinion was issued later in 2005, just as Congress was working on an anti-torture bill. That opinion declared that none of the CIA's interrogation practices would violate the rules in the legislation banning "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment of detainees, The Times said, citing interviews with unnamed current and former officials.

"We stick to U.S. law and international obligations," the president said, without taking questions afterward.

White House and Justice Department press officers have said the 2005 opinions did not reverse the 2004 policy.

Bush, speaking emphatically, noted that "highly trained professionals" conduct any questioning. "And by the way," he said, "we have gotten information from these high-value detainees that have helped protect you."

He also said that the techniques used by the United States "have been fully disclosed to appropriate members of the United States Congress" — an indirect slap at the torrent of criticism that has flowed from the Democratic-controlled Congress since the memos' disclosure.

"The American people expect their government to take action to protect them from further attack," Bush said. "And that's exactly what this government is doing. And that's exactly what we'll continue to do."

The 2005 opinions approved by Gonzales remain in effect despite efforts by Congress and the courts to limit interrogation practices used by the government in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The authorizations came after the withdrawal of an earlier classified Justice opinion, issued in 2002, that had allowed certain aggressive interrogation practices so long as they stopped short of producing pain equivalent to experiencing organ failure or death. That controversial memo was withdrawn in June 2004.

The dispute may come down to how the Bush administration defines torture, or whether it allowed U.S. interrogators to interpret anti-torture laws beyond legal limits. CIA spokesman George Little said the agency sought guidance from the Bush administration and Congress to make sure its program to detain and interrogate terror suspects followed U.S. law.

Senate and House Democrats have demanded to see the memos.

"Why should the public have confidence that the program is either legal or in the best interests of the United States?" Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., wrote in a letter to the acting attorney general.

House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers and Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., promised a congressional inquiry.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said he was "personally assured by administration officials that at least one of the techniques allegedly used in the past, waterboarding, was prohibited under the new law."

A White House spokesman, meanwhile, criticized the leak of such information to the news media and questioned the motivations of those who do so.

"It's troubling," Tony Fratto said Friday. "I've had the awful responsibility to have to work with The New York Times and other news organizations on stories that involve the release of classified information. And I can tell you that every time I've dealt with any of these stories, I have felt that we have chipped away at the safety and security of America with the publication of this kind of information."

source: 5oct2007

Justice Document Gives Green Light for Interrogation Violence

Agence France Presse 5oct2007

WASHINGTON — Since 2005, a US Justice Department document has authorized and justified the use of violent and trauma-producing techniques in interrogations of war on terror suspects, The New York Times reported Thursday.

Citing unnamed past and present Justice Department officials, it said the legal department document was circulated in 2005 -- when Congress adopted a law banning cruel inhumane and degrading treatment.

"The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures," the Times reported.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino did not deny the existence of the document, but did not offer details.

However, White House Homeland Security Adviser Fran Townsend later said the program involved a team of fewer than 100 highly trained interrogators.

"We start with the least harsh measures first," Townsend told CNN television. "It stops ... if someone becomes cooperative."

She said the White House was "baffled" by suggestions that if the US government didn't use harsh interrogation tactics, Al-Qaeda would treat captured Americans better.

And she suggested the harsh interrogation techniques had support and understanding of the American public.

"If Americans are killed because we failed to do the hard things, the American people would have the absolute right to ask us why," Townsend said.

In a statement Thursday, the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is coordinating the defense of many detainees at the US naval base at Guantanamo, urged attorney general nominee Michael Mukasey commit to ending the policy.

"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," the CCR said.

source: 5oct2007

In November of 2005, Bush Declared "We Do Not Torture."
He surely knew otherwise, which makes him a liar.
Day in and day out, he puts on
his little American flag
and he lies to the
whole country.