Pat Dollard | Young Americans

The Swamp:

by James Oliphant

Democratic reaction to the president’s veto today of a bill that prohibits the CIA from using harsh interrogation tactics such as waterboarding has been fast and furious.

President Bush announced the veto during his weekly radio address. And in a message to Congress today, Bush said he vetoed the bill because it “is vitally important that the Central Intelligence Agency be allowed to maintain a separate and classified interrogation program” from the military.

The bill requires CIA agents to abide by interrogation limits set by the Army Field Manual, which guides troops in the field, and had the support of many retired senior military officers. The CIA, however, opposed the legislation.

Sen. Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, released a statement saying:

“The president has once again compromised the moral leadership of our nation. In vetoing the Intelligence Authorization bill that would establish a single, government-wide interrogation standard, the President has substituted his own judgment for that of dozens of bipartisan military and foreign policy experts – including Gen. Petraeus – who agree that torture is counterproductive.
Sen. Jay Rockefeller said the president had weakened the nation’s legal and moral authority:

“As Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I have heard nothing to suggest that information obtained from enhanced interrogation techniques has prevented an imminent terrorist attack. And I have heard nothing that makes me think the information obtained from these techniques could not have been obtained through traditional interrogation methods used by military and law enforcement interrogators. On the other hand, I do know that coercive interrogations can lead detainees to provide false information in order to make the interrogation stop.

Sen. Joseph Biden, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the president had “squandered an opportunity to reaffirm our nation’s commitment to our international treaty obligations and to our fundamental values.”