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Cheney seeks CIA exemption to torture ban
Updated: 2005-11-05 20:30
Vice President Dick Cheney made an unusual personal
appeal to Republican senators this week to allow CIA exemptions to a proposed
ban on the torture of terror suspects in U.S. custody, according to participants
in a closed-door session.
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney is shown in
Perry, Georgia in this October 28, 2005 file photo. The indictment of
former top White House aide Lewis Libby in the CIA leak investigation will
put Cheney's office at the center of court proceedings, raising the
specter of a politically damaging trial for the beleaguered Bush
administration. [Reuters] |
Cheney told his audience the United States doesn't engage in torture, these
participants added, even though he said the administration needed an exemption
from any legislation banning "cruel, inhuman or degrading" treatment in case the
president decided one was necessary to prevent a terrorist attack.
The vice president made his comments at a regular weekly private meeting of
Senate Republican senators, according to several lawmakers who attended. Cheney
often attends the meetings, a chance for the rank-and-file to discuss
legislative strategy, but he rarely speaks.
In this case, the room was cleared of aides before the vice president began
his remarks, said by one senator to include a reference to classified material.
The officials who disclosed the events spoke on condition of anonymity, citing
the confidential nature of the discussion.
"The vice president's office doesn't have any comment on a private meeting
with members of the Senate," Steve Schmidt, a spokesman for Cheney, said on
Friday.
The vice president drew support from at least one lawmaker, Sen. Jeff
Sessions (news, bio, voting record) of Alabama, while Arizona Sen. John McCain
(news, bio, voting record) dissented, officials said.
McCain, who was tortured while held as a prisoner during the Vietnam War, is
the chief Senate sponsor of an anti-torture provision that has twice cleared the
Senate and triggered veto threats from the White House.
Cheney's decision to speak at the meeting underscored both his role as White
House point man on the contentious issue and the importance the administration
attaches to it.
The vice president made his appeal at a time Congress is struggling with the
torture issue in light of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and allegations of
mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The United States houses
about 500 detainees at the naval base there, many of them captured in
Afghanistan.
Additionally, human rights organizations contend the United States turns
detainees over to other countries that it knows will use torture to try and
extract intelligence information.
Cheney's appeal came two days before a former senior State Department
official claimed in an interview with National Public Radio's "Morning Edition"
that he had traced paperwork back to Cheney's office that he believes led to
U.S. troops abusing prisoners in Iraq.
"It was clear to me there that there was a visible audit trail from the vice
president's office through the secretary of defense down to the commanders in
the field," Lawrence Wilkerson, a former colonel who was Secretary of State
Colin Powell's chief of staff during President Bush's first term, said Thursday.
Wilkerson said the view of Cheney's office was put in "carefully couched"
terms but that to a soldier in the field it meant sometimes using interrogation
techniques that "were not in accordance with the spirit of the Geneva
Conventions and the law of war." He said he no longer has access to the
paperwork.
Cheney spokeswoman Jennifer Mayfield declined to comment on Wilkerson's
remarks.
The Senate recently approved a provision banning the "cruel, inhuman or
degrading" treatment of detainees in U.S. custody. The vote was 90-9, and an
identical provision was added to a second measure on a voice vote on Friday.
Comparable House legislation does not include a similar provision, and it is
not clear whether anti-torture language will be included in either of two large
defense measures Congress hopes to send to Bush's desk later this year.
The White House initially tried to kill the anti-torture provision while it
was pending in the Senate, then switched course to lobby for an exemption in
cases of "clandestine counterterrorism operations conducted abroad, with respect
to terrorists who are not citizens of the United States." The president would
have to approve the exemption, and Defense Department personnel could not be
involved. In addition, any activity would have to be consistent with the
Constitution, federal law and U.S. treaty obligations, according to draft
changes in the exemption the White House is seeking.
Cheney also has met several times with McCain, including one session that CIA
Director Porter Goss attended in a secure room in the Capitol.
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