WASHINGTON, 16 September 2006 — President Bush faced questions yesterday regarding sharp divisions among Republicans about the war on terrorism and disputes over his proposed strategies for interrogating and trying enemy combatants; specifically that legislation on foreign terrorists allow CIA interrogators to use tough interrogation methods.
Bush held a late-morning news conference in the Rose Garden to argue his case, one day after defiant Republicans led the Senate Armed Services Committee in rejecting Bush’s proposal for interrogating and prosecuting terrorism suspects.
Bush said Congress must give the US government authority to provide a legal means to try terrorist suspects in military commissions to prevent attacks on American soil.
“I have one test for this legislation,’’ Bush said at a White House news conference yesterday. “The intelligence community must be able to tell me that the bill Congress sends to my desk will allow this vital program to continue.’’
“Our obligation is to defend liberty and to support democracy in the Middle East,” Bush said. “We must also support our military professionals with the tools they need. The reason they need these tools is because the enemy wants to attack us again.”
On Thursday, the Senate Armed Services Committee voted 15-9 to endorse an alternative bill by Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain that would protect the rights of foreign terrorism suspects.
McCain, Virginia Republican Sen. John Warner and South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham made up the core of the rebellion against Bush and engineered the vote despite a personal visit by the president on Thursday. His visit on Capital Hill resulted in critics dubbing Bush: “The Lobbyist-in-Chief.”
The Senate committee’s bill said would meet demands of the US Supreme Court that struck down Bush’s original plan.
The president’s measure would go further than that bill, allowing classified evidence to be withheld from defendants in terror trials and using coerced testimony. The legislation also would revise the law that interprets the nation’s obligations under the Geneva Conventions, the treaty that sets the standard for treatment of war prisoners, so that harsh interrogations of detainees would not be questioned in court.
The Senate Republicans oppose the legislation because they say it could expose US troops to abusive treatment in future wars. They also contend that barring a defendant from access to evidence used to convict them would undermine the credibility of the court.
The vote set up a legislative showdown during an election year in which Republicans hope to protect control of both houses of the US Congress by appearing strong on fighting terrorism.
White House spokesman Tony Snow said Bush yesterday “reiterated his commitment to a military commission process that provides a legal pathway to bringing terror suspects to justice and his commitment to a CIA program that has been an invaluable source of intelligence, has foiled numerous terror plots and has saved many American lives.”
Snow said the Geneva Conventions’ Common Article 3 is vague and must be clarified to protect CIA interrogators from prosecution. The CIA will be forced to shut down its “high value terrorist detention” program if protections are not codified, he said.
The dust-up between Bush and his Republican allies came at a time when Bush is arguing for strong protections against the threat of terrorism, with the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 fresh in Americans’ minds before November congressional elections.
Bush’s former Secretary of State Colin Powell endorsed the Senate approach, warning that the Bush administration is risking the safety of US troops and worldwide opinion by permitting harsh treatment of detainees and redefining what’s allowed under the Geneva Conventions.
“The opposition to these provisions by legal scholars, military lawyers and a host of former top commanders of the armed forces has been overwhelming. In recent days, two former chairmen of the joint chiefs of staff, Colin L. Powell, and John W. Vessey, wrote to Sen. John McCain urging him to go on fighting the White House. “The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism,” Gen. Powell wrote,” noted yesterday’s New York Times lead editorial. The Washington Post wrote in an editorial yesterday that Bush was basically lobbying for torture and that the CIA wants permission to interrogate detainees “with abusive practices that in the past have included induced hypothermia and ‘waterboarding,’ or simulated drowning.”
