White House gives in on torture

December 15, 2005

There are varying media reports with slightly different details, but it appears that the Bush White House has finally given in and accepted John McCain’s amendment on torture.

After months of resistance, the White House has agreed to accept Sen. John McCain’s call for a law banning cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of foreign suspects in the war on terror, several congressional officials said Thursday.

Under the emerging deal, the CIA and other civilian interrogators would be given the same legal rights as currently guaranteed members of the military who are accused of breaking interrogation guidelines, these officials added. Those rules say the accused can defend themselves by arguing it was reasonable for them to believe they were obeying a legal order.

Moreover, Andrew Sullivan, whose sources are a little better than mine, said, “I’m told a White House statement is imminent on the McCain Amendment. I’m told the White House has embraced the amendment, with no changes.”

The events that led the White House to reverse course on this will no doubt be fleshed out in the coming hours and days, but it seems safe to assume that when the House easily passed a non-binding resolution in support of McCain’s amendment last night, 308 to 122, and in the process ignored the administration’s demands, Bush’s congressional liaisons knew the writing was on the wall.

By the way, when the Senate passed McCain’s provision 90 to 9, the nine who stood with the White House, all of whom are Republicans, were subjected to a fair amount of scrutiny. With 122 lawmakers voting the same way yesterday, it’s a little tough to offer the full list here, but be sure to check this roll-call list to see the whole shameful bunch.

Congress is waking up to find that they can defy the White House with impunity if they just stick together.

Sucks to be George, doesn’t it? 😉

  • I just went to see how Sam Johnson, the representative from my district, voted. I wondered if his POW past would trump the insane, right-wing-hack, let’s-nuke-Syria embarrassment he has become.

    Nope. Or should I say, Nay.

  • OT but this is something that has always bugged me. Please stop using the unnecessarily vague “hours and days” or “days and weeks” ” or weeks and months” term coined by Cheney or Rumsfeld or whomever in the early days of Bush’s presidency. Say one or the other!

  • I’m not celebrating yet. AP’s report on this says:

    Under the emerging deal, the CIA and other civilian interrogators would be given the same legal rights as currently guaranteed members of the military who are accused of breaking interrogation guidelines, these officials added. Those rules say the accused can defend themselves by arguing it was reasonable for them to believe they were obeying a legal order.

    What does this mean? That ignorance of the intent of the law is an acceptable defense? Sounds like a typical Republican “it’s-what-we-say-not-what-we-do” boondoggle to me.

  • This is only a show-victory, guys, to keep us rubes happy (& thus vote GOP again) and to try to project an image of a law-and-order pro-human-rights US abroad.

    The fundamental problem is that the executive branch has no one willing to exercise oversight. Law is only as useful as the threat of its being enforced. That fact that the oversight infrastructure has failed hasn’t changed one whit because of this McCain amendment. Until that happens, the WH can still do as it pleases.

  • Did I read it correctly that there is only one Dem who voted against this? Shame on the one, but heaps more shame on the 121 Republicans who voted that way. This should be a billboard somewhere… nevermind, the media companies won’t place it.

  • Interesting bit from Clemons over at the Washington Note:

    …I don’t trust Vice President Cheney on this front — and nervous rumors are leaking out of the White House and State Department that Vice President Cheney’s supposed “containment” by Bush was a ruse, or at least was just temporary.

    Some are suggesting that Cheney and his people are back — and that he has even sent word out on one front that “diplomacy with North Korea will be suspended.” Rice may not yield to Cheney, but what is important to note is that some of those who thought that the Libby indictment and combination of bad news items crippling the White House had harmed Cheney’s status are now reversing themselves. At a minimum, they are talking less definitively about Cheney’s downfall…..

    http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001143.html

  • This may be good news. I think until it is a done deal we should hold back our Kudos.

    The ACLU while commending the House for passing the resolution has a few reservation about what may occur during the conference committee. Read about them here.

    Also, yesterday’s NYTimes had a report about the DOD revising its field manual to undermine the McCain amendment. Rueters has a report on the report. To be fair, according to Rueters McCain is not too concerned about this particular problem.

  • I noticed two Ohio Republicans in the Yea column – Tiberi and Pryce – and six in the Nay column – Hobson, Oxley, Chabot, Ney, Schmidt, and Boehner. Looks like Mean Jean Schmidt isn’t taking any steps to civilize her reputation.

    And who the hell is Marshall, the only Democrat to vote Yea? What is he/she thinking?

  • The democrat for torture is named Marshall. In the list democrats are in italics while republicans are in plain red blooded American Times NewRoman. There is a very full story at http://www.washingtonpost.com. It appears that McCain has also bloecked the rewrite the manual on interrogation techniques scam. His original language said to follow the manual so the Bush administration decided to rewrite it. He appears to have agreement on what was agreed now too.

    Total cut and run by Bush as far as I can see.

  • How long before Bush starts using:

    “We do not torture…and I supported the McCain Ammendment” line?

    Seriously…we WILL hear this!

  • Why has no one mentioned that while this was pending, the Pentagon was rewriting the procedures for interoggating prisoners?

    I thought that was huge. As far as I understood it, the new rules for the amred services are now “secret” and rewritten.

    It couldn’t be that they now include waterboarding, discomfort, etc. etc?

    And THAT is why the WH changed direction on this?

  • I don’t agree that Bush gave in on torture, quite the opposite. WaPo reported that the Bush compromise on the McCain amendment now contains language that would allow civilian interrogators to “defend their use of interrogation tactics by arguing in court that a “person of ordinary sense and understanding would not know the practices were unlawful.”

    Who are the civilian interrogators? CIA, right. So the CIA or whoever the torturing agency is can argue what’s reasonable and what isn’t, what would shock the conscience. They can argue they were just following a lawful order from the administration to interrogate a suspected terrorist [possibly in a ticking bomb moment], in order to avoid any liability. The Bush administration already has a record of approving interrogation techniques in violation of the Geneva Conventions.

    Worse, the McCain anti-torture bill, according to WaPo, also “prohibits the abuse of any detainee in US custody and would also make it a legal requirement that Defense Department interrogators abide by the rules of the Army’s field manual on interrogations.” Except, per the NYT, the Pentagon just approved a new, secret set of interrogation methods for its Army field manual, which reportedly pushes the boundaries between what is legal and illegal. The new manual may permit techniques that had been illegal before against all suspects anywhere? But only the Pentagon knows what the secret new methods allow.

    Then the Bush administration isn’t averse to violating the Constitution and statute law either. For example: Bush’s secret executive order to NSA to spy on Americans. So what will ensure that the Bush administration abides by any part of the McCain amendment?

    So I’m not sure that Bush has caved on anything? In fact, I get the impression that Bush won, McCain lost, and Bush is claiming a PR victory for doing the opposite of what the media is reporting to boot.

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