Posted on 09/22/2006 6:49:15 AM PDT by new yorker 77
Washington, Sep 22: US President George W. Bush won over rebel Republican lawmakers in a deal that would allow his CIA programme of capturing and secretly interrogating terrorist suspects to continue.
Bush's aides worked out the agreement with three leading US senators from his own centre-right party in days of tense negotiations, apparently salvaging a key part of his anti-terrorism agenda that he refused to publicly acknowledge until two weeks ago.
"I'm pleased to say that this agreement preserves the single most potent tool we have in protecting America and foiling terrorist attacks, and that is the CIA programme to question the world's most dangerous terrorists and to get their secrets," Bush said Thursday in Florida.
The deal would also give legal backing to special military tribunals - so-called military commissions - that Bush set up for suspected terrorists held at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Republicans are under pressure to end the showdown before Congress breaks after next week to campaign for the Nov 7 mid-term congressional elections, in which Bush is trying to focus on the issue of terrorism.
At issue are competing proposals in Congress to resume the military tribunals and to define how the 1949 Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners apply to detainees in the US war on terrorism.
Some critics fear that White House-backed plans would legalise interrogation practices that might be considered torture, undermining US standing in the world and exposing captured US soldiers to similar techniques.
Among those who opposed Bush was Senator John McCain, who survived five years as a North Vietnamese prisoner of war. McCain, a possible presidential contender in 2008, also defied the White House in December by adding an explicit ban on detainee torture into the defence budget.
McCain said that Thursday's accord preserves "the integrity and letter and spirit of the Geneva Conventions".
Under the deal, methods viewed as "grave breaches" of the conventions could trigger criminal charges, Bush's national security adviser Stephen Hadley told reporters.
The deal endorses McCain's anti-torture amendment as guidance for US personnel but leaves Bush to define what standards are acceptable outside of the "grave breaches" clause, Hadley said.
Dispute has centred on so-called Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which requires that detainees be spared "outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment".
A US Senate committee has approved a proposal that upholds the language of the conventions, an international treaty that the US has signed.
A White House-backed plan passed by two House of Representatives committees departs from the Geneva Conventions and would deny defendants access to information used to convict them that the US government deems secret.
Bush's hand was forced when the US Supreme Court ruled in June that the "military commissions" set up to conduct trials of Guantanamo detainees were unconstitutional and against the Geneva Conventions. So far, 10 of the roughly 450 Guantanamo inmates have been charged.
Bush responded by trying to give a legal basis not only to the special tribunals but also to tough interrogation practices that have tested - or, critics say, weakened - the Geneva Conventions.
High-profile critics, including his former secretary of state Colin Powell and top military lawyers, accuse Bush of redefining the Geneva Conventions to suit US purposes.
This would undermine America's moral authority and encourage other countries to make their own opportunistic revisions, they say.
And waterboarding is back. Guess McCain, et al, got hooted out of court over that one.
Trouble with John is he got tortured, and he thinks everybody does it just that way ~ they don't though. The NVA and VC like to "do" torture as an aphrodisiac. If that gets them some information, that's OK too, but that wasn't the purpose.
Yeah...what's the ACLU and SCOTUS going to say about that.
"Trouble with John is he got tortured, and he thinks everybody does it just that way ~"
I think that's the main reason McCain is so compromised and why he can never be allowed to assume a "serious" position of authority.
So, what happen to Colin Powell now? Does he approve the agreement, or he's crying on the corner being left out by McCain & Co?
All of the liberals said so. Therefore it has to be true.
"But, torture doesn't work!!!!!!!!!
All of the liberals said so. Therefore it has to be true."
Torture doesn't. Aggressive interrogations often do.
The libs have had sucess framing the debate with all this BS talk of "torture". The enemy does that with no goals other then sick murder and to inflict suffering as punishment. The US does not torture. We interrogate with specifice goals to gain intellgence to save lives. We do this because the enemy forced us to. Nobody forces the enemy to torture. If we are always specific on this, the libs will look like the exploitive anti US chumps they are.
Too late. He's already earned that rep.
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