I think we all know what this means ...DallasNews.com (Dumb-ass registration scheme required) wrote:Democrats demand to see documents that they say sanction torture
11:16 PM CDT on Tuesday, June 8, 2004
By MICHELLE MITTELSTADT / The Dallas Morning News
WASHINGTON – Angered by the discovery of internal Bush administration memos suggesting torture could be justified in certain instances, Senate Democrats demanded Tuesday that Attorney General John Ashcroft hand over the documents.
During an often testy Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Mr. Ashcroft declined on grounds that his department's advice to the president is confidential. He insisted, however, that President Bush had not sanctioned the torture of suspected al-Qaeda terrorists, Iraqi prisoners or other captives.
"This administration rejects torture," the attorney general said.
Justice and Defense Department lawyers, in 2002 and 2003 memos disclosed this week by the Wall Street Journal and two other newspapers, said federal laws and decades-old international treaties barring torture could be circumvented by the commander-in-chief for national security imperatives.
Citing the media accounts, committee Democrats pressed the attorney general repeatedly for the documents, which some said chronicle a major policy shift.
The memos "appear to be an effort to redefine torture and narrow the prohibition against it by carving out a class of something called exceptional interrogation," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.
Mr. Ashcroft denied that policy had been changed and declined to provide classified or declassified versions of the memos to the lawmakers.
Confidentiality stressed
"I do believe a president has a right to obtain legal advice from his attorney general on matters and not have to have that revealed to the whole world," he said.
Democrats challenged the rationale, saying the administration either has to assert an executive privilege claim or cite a law that permits the withholding of the information – neither of which Mr. Ashcroft did Tuesday.
"You are not allowed under our Constitution not to answer our questions," Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., told Mr. Ashcroft. "You all better come up with a good rationale, because otherwise it's contempt of Congress."
Asked later whether the Democrats would press a contempt of Congress case, the committee's top Democrat, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, said they would wait to see whether the attorney general answers questions they will submit in writing about the administration's interrogation policies.
The Justice Department advised the White House in an August 2002 memo that international laws against torture such as the Geneva Conventions "may be unconstitutional" if applied to terrorism-related interrogations, The Washington Post reported Tuesday. Similar legal reasoning surfaced in a March 2003 report in which Defense Department lawyers assessed rules being used to interrogate al-Qaeda and Taliban suspects held at Guantánamo Bay, the Post said.
"Hiding these documents from view is the sign of a cover-up, not of cooperation," Mr. Leahy said, referring to an ongoing Senate investigation of prisoner abuse by U.S. personnel at Abu Ghraib prison.
Brandishing pictures of prisoners being piled naked into a huddle, shackled in uncomfortable positions or confronted by guard dogs, Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., drew a direct line between the prison abuse and the legal guidance contained in the administration memos.
"We know, when we have these kinds of orders, what happens," Mr. Kennedy charged. "We get the stress test, we get the use of dogs, we get the forced nakedness that we've all seen on these [pictures] and we get the hooding. This is what directly results when you have that kind of memoranda out there."
Mr. Ashcroft decried Mr. Kennedy's assessment as an "inappropriate conclusion."
"Let me completely reject the notion that anything that this president has done or the Justice Department has done has directly resulted in the kinds of atrocities which were cited," he said. "That is false."
The administration is investigating and prosecuting cases against U.S. soldiers suspected of abusing Iraqi prisoners, Mr. Ashcroft said. The abuse is "not pursuant to any order, directive or policy of this administration."
Under questioning, the attorney general said the president has not issued any orders granting legal immunity to interrogators.
Mr. Bush has ordered the Defense Department to treat "humanely" al-Qaeda and Taliban detainees, who aren't entitled to Geneva Convention protections, Mr. Ashcroft said.
Appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, on which he once served, for the first time in 15 months, Mr. Ashcroft faced a warm reception from his former GOP colleagues, many of whom praised him for keeping the nation safe since the Sept. 11 attacks.
Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., cautioned against release of the memos, arguing that knowledge of what interrogation techniques are permissible could help al-Qaeda train its operatives in how to resist certain tactics. ''It's not useful to give anybody a blueprint as to how we might go about interrogating them," he said.
Focus on Patriot Act
Much of the Republicans' questioning focused on whether the Justice Department needs anti-terrorism tools beyond those granted in the USA Patriot Act.
Mr. Ashcroft urged Congress to reauthorize the sections of the Patriot Act due to expire in December 2005 "unless we want simply to let down the guard of the United States against terror."
Democrats pressed the Justice Department to provide more detail about how it is using the law, parts of which are held secret.
"We do deserve to have an honest discussion about the use of the Patriot Act so the Congress can decide if it has been abused, if it needs to be fixed, or if every word of the Patriot Act should be extended without change," said Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis.
IT'S ON!
