But human rights groups and civil liberties advocates argue that waterboarding amounts to illegal torture.
Prof. David Cole of the Georgetown University law school told us, “It is a tragedy of historic dimensions that the President of the United States has now stood up for torture. After repeatedly insisting that ‘we don't torture’, President Bush has vetoed a bill that would have held the executive branch accountable to that promise. We can only hope that Congress has the will to override this bill, and that the American people have the will to elect a President who is truly committed to getting the CIA out of the torture business.” Cole is one of the nation’s preeminent Constitutional scholars.
His view is echoed by Mary Shaw of Amnesty International USA, who told us that “Use of waterboarding and other ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ is in clear violation of several domestic and international laws and treaties. The Bush administration must be stopped from using the ‘war on terror’ as an excuse to violate basic human rights. Congress must not let the veto stand.”
A view about what Congress can do in the face of the President’s veto was expressed by the CCR’S Ratner. He told us that Congress “does not need a veto proof two-thirds majority to cut funds off from any U.S. agency, e.g. the CIA that engages in practices not authorized by the Army Field Manual. It simply does not need to fund torture -- 51 votes are enough to end funding in the Senate or a similar bare majority in the House. People should not fall for the excuse that Congress needs a veto proof two-thirds to ban torture. It can do it tomorrow without Bush standing in the way. Its failure to do so and its continued furnishing of money for the program implicates Congress in the criminality of torture. The charade of a Democratic congress blaming Bush alone for the torture program is just that—a charade.”
The Army manual forbids eight harsh techniques, including waterboarding, mock executions, use of beatings and electric shocks, forced nakedness and sexual acts, and causing hypothermia or heat injuries.
Some of the most vocal criticism of the Bush administration’s stance on torture has come from former military leaders. More than 30 three- and four-star retired generals have urged the adoption of a single interrogation standard, and warned that the use of abusive interrogation techniques is both ineffective and unwise.
The latest to take this position is Brigadier General James Cullen (Ret.), former Chief Judge of the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals. He recently told Amy Goodman, a radio talk show host, “We hear a lot of arguments to try to justify ‘enhanced interrogation techniques,’ but we know exactly what we’re talking about. It’s torture in different packaging.” He said “torture is just a stupid way of going about it.”
Other military leaders have taken similar positions. General David Petraeus, commanding general of multinational forces in Iraq, recently called the military’s interrogation techniques an effective and humane way to gather information from the enemy.
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