WASHINGTON — A senior Justice Department official says laws and other limits enacted since three terrorism suspects were waterboarded — are no longer legally allowed.
Steven Bradbury, the acting head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, took on one of the fiercest debates in Washington yesterday by tackling the controversial interrogation technique known as waterboarding, which simulates drowning.
“The set of interrogation methods authorized for current use is narrower than before, and it does not today include waterboarding,” Bradbury said in remarks prepared for his appearance before the House Judiciary Constitution subcommittee.
“There has been no determination by the Justice Department that the use of waterboarding, under any circumstances, would be lawful under current law,” he said.
It is the first time the department has expressed such an opinion publicly. CIA Director Michael Hayden stopped short of making a similar statement in testimony about waterboarding before Congress last week.
In 2005, Bradbury signed two secret legal memos that authorized the CIA to use head slaps, freezing temperatures and waterboarding when questioning terror detainees. Because of that, Senate Democrats have opposed his nomination by President Bush to formally head the legal counsel’s office.
Bradbury’s testimony comes as majority Democrats in Congress try to clamp down on interrogation methods that can be used on terrorism suspects.
Congress on Wednesday moved to prohibit the CIA from using waterboarding and other harsh tactics, despite President Bush’s threat to veto any measure that limits the agency’s interrogation techniques.
The Senate voted 51-45, with five Republicans joining 45 Democrats and one independent in favor of the ban.
Now the White House has threatened to veto the bill because it includes a provision that would prohibit the CIA and other US intelligence agencies from using interrogation techniques not authorized by the US Army Field Manual.
Given the narrow vote, Democrats do not appear to have enough support to override a veto.
Last week, the CIA confirmed it has used waterboarding, and the White House said the technique could be authorized again — reigniting a controversy over human rights and national security.
The debate is linked to two other sensitive issues: the Bush Administration’s decision this week to seek the death penalty in military commission trials for six accused September 11 plotters and its push for congressional approval of expanded electronic surveillance in a measure that grants immunity to phone companies for their role in past spying. The Senate passed such a bill this week and the House of Representatives members are debating whether to do the same.
Broad spying powers, temporarily approved by Congress in August, appear likely to lapse because talks failed to produce a clear resolution.
President Bush pressed the House to adopt the plan to broaden spying powers for six years, which he said was essential because terrorists were planning attacks “that will make Sept. 11 pale in comparison.”
However, a proposal for a 21-day reprieve to allow more time for negotiations failed because of opposition from those who reject the plan and those who support it.
President Bush maintained that letting the broadened surveillance powers lapse “would jeopardize the security of our citizens.”
Democrats insisted a lapse would have no real effect. The expiration of the powers “doesn’t mean we are somehow vulnerable again,” said House Intelligence Committee chairman Silvestre Reyes.
This was but the latest chapter in a long-running battle between congressional Democrats and the Bush Administration over the treatment of terrorist prisoners and the boundaries of executive privilege, issues certain to arise in the presidential election.
