Bush Says US Does ‘Not Use Torture’

by Barbara Ferguson

WASHINGTON, 6 October 2007 — President George W. Bush yesterday defended the Central Intelligence Agency’s use of “black sites,” or secret overseas prisons, to interrogate terrorism suspects — and said the United States does not use torture.

Bush said he put the program “in motion” to detain and question terrorism suspects, and it had yielded information that helped “better protect” Americans. The program has sparked criticism over interrogation methods.

“I have put this program in place for a reason — that is to better protect the American people,” Bush said in an impromptu statement from the Oval Office yesterday morning. “You bet we’re going to detain ‘em, and you bet we’re going to question ‘em. This government does not torture people; we stick to US law and our international obligations.”

Bush addressed the controversy after calling in reporters to discuss the latest job numbers, which are down. He did not take questions. The president made the comments amid new disclosures that the Justice Department in 2005 had secretly endorsed the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the CIA. The White House also confirmed the existence of two secret memos, first reported in The New York Times on Thursday, that appear to authorize the CIA the ability to use its most extreme interrogation techniques, including simulated drowning known as “water-boarding.” The Bush administration has been playing an elaborate cat-and-mouse game with Congress over acceptable methods of interrogation since the 9/11 terror attacks.

Bush has said the Geneva Conventions prohibiting the mutilation, cruel treatment and torture of detainees do not apply to Al-Qaeda members.

Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel seemed to agree. In a 2002 memo to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, then White House counsel, it claimed Bush was not bound by federal anti-torture laws and argued that anyone using tactics authorized by the president could not be prosecuted.

Moreover, the memo argued cruel and degrading treatment was not illegal so long as it did not produce physical pain equivalent to organ failure or death or mental pain causing lasting psychological damage. The Abu Ghraib prison scandal triggered a marked shift in public — and congressional — opinion. In 2005, US lawmakers passed the Detainee Treatment Act, which explicitly banned “cruel, inhuman or degrading” treatment of prisoners.

The president said yesterday that “the techniques that we used have been fully disclosed to appropriate members of the US Congress.” The Bush administration has briefed the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence about various aspects of the interrogation methods being used on terror suspects. But the committee has demanded to see the opinions written by Justice Department lawyers to justify the harshest methods.

Questions about harsh interrogation techniques have become a hallmark of the Bush administration and most of those questions continue to swirl around Justice Department’s former Attorney General Gonzales who, the reports said, approved the legal opinions to bring policy more in line with the wishes of President Bush.

Gonzales left his office last month amid charges he had politicized the Justice Department and compromised its independence in his zeal to accommodate his mentor, Bush.

Following disclosure of the Justice Department memos, Democratic lawmakers demanded that the agency turn over the two memos. The controversy could complicate the upcoming confirmation hearings for Attorney General-designate Michael B. Mukasey.

Democrats said they would call Steven Bradbury, the acting chief of legal counsel at the US Justice Department, identified by the Times as the author of the memos.