Bush to CIA: 'Leave No Marks'
With no sign of torture on a prisoner, then it didn't happen, right?
by Nat Hentoff
The Village Voice
On July 20, George W. Bush issued an executive order authorizing the CIA to use "enhanced" techniques (as the president likes to call them) in its terror interrogation program—including in the CIA's secret prisons, known internationally as "black sites."
CIA director Michael Hayden assures us that "now our mission and authorities [to conduct that mission] are clearly defined." Adds national intelligence director Michael McConnell: "We now have a clear legal basis" for the CIA's crucial national-security responsibilities.
The new Bush directive claims to forbid torture and cruel and inhuman treatment, as required by the Supreme Court's 2006 Hamdan v. Rumsfeld decision and the Geneva Conventions. However, under the Military Commissions Act of 2006, only the president can interpret the meaning of the Geneva Conventions.
And under his executive order, Bush refuses to list the specific techniques that the CIA can use. All are still classified.
Therefore, "given [this administration's] record," says Jennifer Daskal, the U.S. program advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, where she focuses on counterterrorism policy, "there is absolutely no reason to take the Bush administration's word on trust." For example, Bush has repeatedly insisted that, "We do not torture," despite, as I and others have documented, a mountain range of evidence to the contrary. (See Jane Mayer's "The Black Sites: A rare look into the CIA's secret interrogation programs," The New Yorker, August 13.)
Why are these special powers of extreme persuasion—exclusively permitted for the CIA—classified? Because, says McConnell, we don't want future inmates of the "black sites" to figure out how to resist these "enhanced" techniques for extracting information.
But McConnell also doesn't want the tenderhearted among us to fear that the world will regard our nation as monstrous for permitting the use of these methods. When Associated Press reporter Ben Feller asked him whether the American people would be upset if the enemy used these secret interrogation methods on American citizens, McConnell answered:
(Continued here.)
by Nat Hentoff
The Village Voice
On July 20, George W. Bush issued an executive order authorizing the CIA to use "enhanced" techniques (as the president likes to call them) in its terror interrogation program—including in the CIA's secret prisons, known internationally as "black sites."
CIA director Michael Hayden assures us that "now our mission and authorities [to conduct that mission] are clearly defined." Adds national intelligence director Michael McConnell: "We now have a clear legal basis" for the CIA's crucial national-security responsibilities.
The new Bush directive claims to forbid torture and cruel and inhuman treatment, as required by the Supreme Court's 2006 Hamdan v. Rumsfeld decision and the Geneva Conventions. However, under the Military Commissions Act of 2006, only the president can interpret the meaning of the Geneva Conventions.
And under his executive order, Bush refuses to list the specific techniques that the CIA can use. All are still classified.
Therefore, "given [this administration's] record," says Jennifer Daskal, the U.S. program advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, where she focuses on counterterrorism policy, "there is absolutely no reason to take the Bush administration's word on trust." For example, Bush has repeatedly insisted that, "We do not torture," despite, as I and others have documented, a mountain range of evidence to the contrary. (See Jane Mayer's "The Black Sites: A rare look into the CIA's secret interrogation programs," The New Yorker, August 13.)
Why are these special powers of extreme persuasion—exclusively permitted for the CIA—classified? Because, says McConnell, we don't want future inmates of the "black sites" to figure out how to resist these "enhanced" techniques for extracting information.
But McConnell also doesn't want the tenderhearted among us to fear that the world will regard our nation as monstrous for permitting the use of these methods. When Associated Press reporter Ben Feller asked him whether the American people would be upset if the enemy used these secret interrogation methods on American citizens, McConnell answered:
(Continued here.)
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