Negotiators on Torture Bill Feel Heat

Negotiators on Torture Bill Feel Heat


Tuesday October 25, 2005 7:01 PM

By LIZ SIDOTI

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Congressional negotiators are feeling heat from the White House and their constituents as they consider whether to back a Senate-approved ban on torturing detainees in U.S. custody or weaken it as the White House prefers.

Led by Vice President Dick Cheney, the Bush administration is floating an alternative proposal that would allow the president to exempt covert agents outside the Defense Department from the prohibition.

Meanwhile, some newspapers are calling for lawmakers to support Sen. John McCain's provision that would ban the use of ``cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment'' against anyone in U.S. government custody, regardless of where they are held.

``There's a lot of public pressure to retain the language intact. At the same time, there's pressure from the vice president's office to modify it,'' said Tom Malinowski, the Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, a group that supports McCain's provision.

Cheney and CIA Director Porter Goss met last week with McCain, R-Ariz., and suggested excluding from the torture ban overseas clandestine counterterrorism operations by agencies other than the Pentagon ``if the president determines that such operations are vital to the protection of the United States or its citizens from terrorist attack.''

McCain, himself a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, said Tuesday that he rejected that because ``that would basically allow the CIA to engage in torture.''

It's unclear just how much influence McCain has in the House-Senate negotiations to iron out differences between House and Senate versions of the $445 billion defense bill. McCain won't be involved in those negotiations.

Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and Rep. Bill Young, R-Fla., who chair Congress' defense spending subcommittees, will be among the leaders of those talks in coming weeks.

Young has said the United States has no obligation to terrorists. Stevens, who voted against the ban in the Senate, said he planned to tweak it during negotiations to satisfy administration concerns that the ban was too broad because it would apply to agents who work undercover.

Top Democratic bargainers - Sen. Daniel Inouye of Hawaii and Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania - support McCain's language, but their clout is limited because they are in the minority party.

Earlier this month, the Senate added the torture prohibition and the interrogation standards to its defense bill on a 90-9 vote, even though the Bush administration threatened a veto if the president's ability to conduct the war was restricted.

The House bill did not include McCain's provision, which also requires U.S. service members to follow the Army Field Manual when imprisoning and questioning suspects in the war on terrorism.

In the weeks since the Senate vote, newspapers from Alabama to Texas to California have called on their lawmakers to support McCain's language. Several took particular aim at hometown Republicans leading the negotiations.

``Sen. Stevens is wrong and should follow the lead of Sen. McCain, who speaks firsthand of the wrongs of torture,'' the Anchorage Daily News said Monday.

Said the St. Petersburg Times on Oct. 16: ``Young and his fellow conferees have an obligation to rise above partisanship and uphold principles that should be beyond debate in a civilized society.''

And a Word From Rush....he's a lunatic...

Liberal Focus on "Torture" Just an Excuse to Impugn America
November 10, 2005



BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Steve in Marquette, Michigan, you're next, sir. Nice to have you on the program.

CALLER: Good afternoon, Mr. Limbaugh. How are you today?

RUSH: Fine, sir. Thank you.

CALLER: I recently have become aware of the fact that the Israelis don't torture when they're interrogating. In fact, the Israeli Supreme Court has outlawed the use of torture (story) in interrogation and I wondered -- you know, because Israel is under so much; you know, they go through a lot more than we go through on a daily basis in their own country -- why do we feel that we have to torture for interrogation when they don't?

RUSH: Well, see, I don't think that we do.

CALLER: You don't think we do? We do or we don't?

RUSH: I don't think torture is a common, ordinary, everyday part of our interrogation strategy.

CALLER: The Israelis never do. Why do we have to?

RUSH: I can't answer that.

CALLER: Why not?
RUSH: I'm not --

CALLER: Why do we have to?

RUSH: I'm not going to grant your premise that we do it.

CALLER: Oh, okay. You're the only one that doesn't know it then.

RUSH: No. I am skeptical of those who make the charge. Just because somebody charges that we're committing torture --

CALLER: Okay, okay, okay, okay. They want to --

RUSH: -- when Ted Kennedy talks about it, and Pat Leahy, I'm not one to join up and sign up and automatically believe that.

CALLER: Okay. They want to allow the CIA to torture in some instances. Dick Cheney is pushing for this. Correct?

RUSH: Cheney you say is pushing for this?

CALLER: Right, right.

RUSH: I don't know that.

CALLER: You don't know that?

RUSH: I don't know that.

CALLER: Everybody else knows it, but you don't know it?

RUSH: Well, the point is it doesn't work. The reason the Israelis don't--

CALLER: Then why is he pushing for it?

RUSH: It doesn't work.

CALLER: Why is Dick Cheney pushing for it?

RUSH: I don't know that he is. Who is telling you that he is?

CALLER: Why is President Bush going to veto this 90-9 resolution that was passed by the US Senate?

RUSH: Because he's the commander-in-chief and they're not. Now you tell me who is saying that Cheney wants to torture in some circumstances? Where are you hearing this?

CALLER: They had John McCain on the other night and they met with them. He said that Dick Cheney is pushing for this legislation.

RUSH: Well, I'm telling you I don't believe everything John McCain says.

CALLER: Okay. Well, I believe everything you say, Rush. You have yourself a nice day. (hangs up)
RUSH: You do the same thing. So here we are. Look where we are in the middle of the war on terror and look what's on the minds of the average American liberal. We're guilty. We got the problem. We have to prove we're the good guys. We have to prove that we're not as bad as the bad guys. Rich in Newington, Connecticut welcome. Nice to have you with us, sir.

CALLER: Rush, it's a pleasure to talk with you. Mega dittos from Connecticut.

RUSH: Thank you, sir.