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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
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September 22nd, 2006 - Top
Republicans Reach an Accord on Detainee Bill |
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Top Republicans Reach an
Accord on Detainee Bill By Kate Zernike New York Times September 22, 2006 Washington, Sept. 21 - The
Bush administration and Congressional Republicans reached agreement Thursday
on legislation governing the treatment and interrogation of terrorism
suspects after weeks of debate that divided Republicans heading into the
midterm elections. Under the deal, President
Bush dropped his demand that Congress redefine the nation’s obligations under
the Geneva Conventions, handing a victory to a group of Republicans,
including Senator John McCain of Arizona, whose opposition had created a
showdown over a fundamental aspect of the rules for battling terrorism. The administration’s
original stance had run into fierce resistance from former and current
military lawyers and Mr. Bush’s former secretary of state, Colin L. Powell, a
former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They argued, as did Mr. McCain
and the other two senators leading the resistance, that any redefinition
would invite other nations to alter their obligations and endanger American
troops captured abroad. “There is no doubt that the
integrity and the letter and the spirit of the Geneva Conventions have been
preserved,” said Mr. McCain, who was tortured during more than five years as
a prisoner in North Vietnam. Members of Congress and
administration officials announced the deal after emerging from a tense and
intricate all-day meeting in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office in a Senate
building. They said they would try to push the measure through in the five
days Congress is scheduled to meet before lawmakers leave to go out and
campaign. The White House moved
quickly to assert that it had not surrendered. Administration officials
characterized the negotiations as cooperative and the result as a victory for
all sides. “The agreement clears the
way to do what the American people expect us to do: to capture terrorists, to
detain terrorists, to question terrorists, and then to try them,” Mr. Bush
said in Orlando, Fla., where he was attending fund-raisers for several
Republican candidates. The dispute revolved around
how to define the rules governing the interrogations of terrorism suspects
and providing legal protection to C.I.A. officers conducting interrogations.
Under the deal, Congress would seek to codify the limits by outlining in the
War Crimes Act, a domestic law, several “grave breaches” of the relevant
provision of the Geneva Conventions, known as Common Article 3. The deal
would eliminate a legislative provision in the original White House proposal
saying that compliance with the Detainee Treatment Act, which Congress passed
last year and which bans “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment,” would by
itself satisfy the obligations of the United States under the conventions. “Everybody agreed we ought
to try and do it in a way that did not involve modifying or amending our
international obligations,” said Stephen J. Hadley, the president’s national
security adviser. “That was the objective we all came to here in the last
week. The goal was whether we could find language mutually agreed between the
Senate and the White House that would achieve those objectives.” Dan Bartlett, counselor to
the president, said: “We proposed a more direct approach to bringing
clarification. This one is more of the scenic route, but it gets us there.” The agreement says the
executive branch is responsible for upholding the nations’ commitment to the
Geneva Conventions, leaving it to the president to establish through
executive rule any violations for the handling of terrorism suspects that
fall short of a “grave breach.” Significantly, Senate aides said, those rules
would have to be published in the Federal Register. The agreement provides
several pages describing “grave breaches” that would not be allowed, starting
with torture and including other forms of assault and mental stress. But it
does not lay out specific interrogation techniques that would be prohibited. The adjustment to the War
Crimes Act, “will put the C.I.A. on notice of what they can and can’t do,”
said Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who, along with Senator John
W. Warner of Virginia, joined Mr. McCain in leading resistance to the White
House approach. “It would take off the table things that are not within
American values.” Asked about one of the most
controversial interrogation techniques, a simulated drowning known as
water-boarding, Mr. Graham said, “It is a technique that we need to let the
world know we are no longer engaging in.” Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the
C.I.A. director, issued a statement to employees, saying, “If this language
becomes law, the Congress will have given us the clarity and the support that
we need to move forward with a detention and interrogation program that
allows us to continue to defend the homeland, attack Al Qaeda and protect
American and allied lives.” The senators were careful
not to characterize winners and losers. “This was a give-and-take,” Mr.
Graham said. The senators agreed to a
White House proposal to make the standard on interrogation treatment
retroactive to 1997, so C.I.A. and military personnel could not be prosecuted
for past treatment under standards the administration considers vague. Senators Graham McCain and
Warner said the agreement met the three goals they set from the beginning: to
preserve the Geneva Conventions, to allow the C.I.A. to continue
interrogations and to set up a program that would pass court review. On another point of
contention, the use of classified evidence in prosecutions of terror
suspects, the senators won agreement that suspects would be allowed to see
any evidence the jury sees, which the senators say is in keeping with 200
years of American judicial tradition. But the agreement includes procedures
that would strip the evidence of the most sensitive details that lawmakers
have worried could be used to plan more attacks. The agreement would not
allow any evidence obtained by techniques that violate the Detainee Treatment
Act, and would not allow hearsay evidence that the defense successfully
argues is not reliable or probative. The Supreme Court had thrown
the issue to Congress in June, when it struck down the tribunals the
president established shortly after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001,
saying they violated constitutional and international law. After weeks of standoff over
proposed legislation, the two sides had begun to negotiate in earnest in the
last few days, after Mr. Hadley said on the Sunday morning news programs that
he believed they could reach consensus without modifying international
agreements. Thursday morning, Senator
Bill Frist of Tennessee, the majority leader, who has supported the
president’s approach, told Mr. Warner that with just a week left before the
Senate is to adjourn, they needed a deal by evening. Mr. Frist said he would send
the bill to the floor. In the House, Representative Duncan Hunter of
California, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said he had some
concerns about the use of classified evidence, but added, “I think we’re very
close.” Democrats have put their
trust in Senators Graham, McCain and Warner to push back against the White
House, and Thursday they signaled that they intended to continue cooperating.
“Five years after Sept. 11, it is time to make the tough and smart decisions
to give the American people the real security they deserve,” said the
Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada. Still, Senator Carl Levin of
Michigan, the senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said he would
press to change a provision in the proposal that would deny detainees a right
to challenge their captivity in court. Sheryl Gay Stolberg
contributed reporting. Copyright 2006 The New York
Times Company External link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/22/washington/22detain.html?th&emc=th |