{"id":13111,"date":"2007-10-04T13:30:47","date_gmt":"2007-10-04T17:30:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/13111.html"},"modified":"2007-10-04T13:30:47","modified_gmt":"2007-10-04T17:30:47","slug":"white-house-uses-circular-reasoning-to-deny-torture-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/white-house-uses-circular-reasoning-to-deny-torture-charges\/","title":{"rendered":"White House uses circular reasoning to deny torture charges"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York Times reported<\/a> this morning that in two separate, secret legal opinions signed by the Attorney General, the Bush administration quietly contradicted its official line and endorsed “the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.” After insisting publicly that “torture is abhorrent,” Bush officials “provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics,” including simulated drownings and freezing temperatures.<\/p>\n

Responding to the news, the White House went into full-denial mode<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“This country does not torture,” White House press secretary Dana Perino told reporters. “It is a policy of the United States that we do not torture and we do not.” […]<\/p>\n

Perino confirmed existence of the Feb. 5, 2005, classified opinion but would not comment on whether it authorized specific practices, such as head-slapping and simulated drowning. She said the 2005 opinion did not reinterpret the law.<\/p>\n

Instead, Perino said the 2004 anti-torture opinion was a “broad and general” interpretation of the law and “the February 2005 one was different in that it was focused on specifics.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Perino insisted, repeatedly, that the U.S. government “doesn’t torture” and “follows the law.” Americans are supposed to believe this, of course, because Perino insisted that the U.S. government “doesn’t torture” and “follows the law.”<\/p>\n

If this sounds like circular reasoning to you, we’re on the same page.
\n
\nPaul Kiel published<\/a> some of the headache-inducing transcript from this morning’s press gaggle at the White House.<\/p>\n

QUESTION: You maintain that the administration still does not torture?<\/p>\n

PERINO: Correct….<\/p>\n

QUESTION: But is it not possible that some of these classified opinions may have changed the definition of “torture”?<\/p>\n

PERINO: No. I don’t believe so. I have not seen them. But as everything was described to me, no, I don’t believe that’s possible….<\/p>\n

QUESTION: But the idea that you can’t discuss it and that you blanketly say there’s no torture when, clearly, in the Department of Justice there has been a debate about if those techniques were too severe … and to simply say there’s no torture, but then to never provide any insight as to what the limitations are, with the exception of death or organ failure …<\/p>\n

PERINO: I’m not disputing that there can be legal disagreements between reasonable people who may look at something one way and another person looks at it in another way. I’m not disputing that. What I am saying is that we do not torture, and I disagree with the notion that just because information is leaked or provided to The New York Times or any other news organization that this country should … that this government should then have to spell out any specifics. And I’m not confirming or denying anything that you just listed … all the ones that you just listed.<\/p>\n

QUESTION: How can you say that … how can you say with assurance that we don’t torture if you don’t know what was in the …<\/p>\n

PERINO: Because we follow the law.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It must be true; the White House press secretary says so.<\/p>\n

Perino also described the NYT article: “The article is quite long. You’re asking me if everything in is accurate. No, I would not think that everything in it is accurate.” It’s an odd way to phrase the denial.<\/p>\n

As for the secret legal opinions themselves, it’s a little unclear which members of Congress, if any, were privy to the information at the time, but some leading congressional Dems want them now<\/a>.<\/p>\n

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) and subcommittee chair Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) today demanded the Justice Department release secret legal opinions from 2005 and 2006 that The New York Times described today as “an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.” […]<\/p>\n

“Both the alleged content of these opinions and the fact that they have been kept secret from Congress are extremely troubling, especially in light of the Department’s 2004 withdrawal of an earlier opinion similarly approving such methods,” Conyers and Nadler wrote. They also demand that Bradbury — who has never been confirmed by the Senate despite serving as OLC chief for years — testify about his justifications for such techniques as waterboarding.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Stay tuned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New York Times reported this morning that in two separate, secret legal opinions signed by the Attorney General, the Bush administration quietly contradicted its official line and endorsed “the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.” After insisting publicly that “torture is abhorrent,” Bush officials “provided explicit authorization to barrage terror […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13111\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}