Interrogation compromise viable
Published 9:00 pm Sunday, September 17, 2006
WASHINGTON – The Bush administration and holdout GOP senators expressed confidence on Sunday they could reach a compromise on rules for CIA interrogations of suspected terrorists. Meanwhile, the top U.S. intelligence official acknowledged “aggressive” interrogation methods that have since been discontinued.
Neither the president’s national security aides nor some of the lawmakers who are resisting White House pressure would say how they can reconcile their deep differences after a week of public sparring.
President Bush says CIA personnel should be able to resume tough interrogation techniques to extract information from detainees. Several senators from his own party are standing in the way, seeking changes. They say the United States must adhere strictly to international standards in the Geneva Conventions and that setting harsher ones could put U.S. troops at risk if they are captured.
“We have to hold the moral high ground,” said Sen. John McCain of Arizona, one of the Republicans not satisfied with the White House proposal. “We don’t think al-Qaida will ever observe those conventions, but we’re going to be in other wars.”
McCain elaborated later Sunday at a reception in Concord, N.H., warning against breaking with provisions of the Geneva Conventions that protect wartime prisoners. “That’s what we do not want, because Americans would be setting the precedent for changing a treaty that has been untouched by any nation for 57 years,” he said.
A Supreme Court ruling in June essentially said the Geneva Conventions should apply to suspected terrorists in CIA custody. The decision froze the interrogations and eventually led the administration to turn over the last 14 prisoners in CIA custody to the military officials running a prison for detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
As part of a campaign by the Bush administration to defend the controversial CIA program, Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte appeared on TV news talk shows on Sunday.
Negroponte said the CIA had used “tough” and “aggressive” interrogation techniques that were discontinued when the Supreme Court ruled that terrorism suspects are entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions.
Negroponte said the CIA might still question terrorism suspects captured overseas, but added that it is “up in the air” whether agency interrogators would be free to employ methods that have been used over the past five years and that Negroponte described as necessary and effective.
Negroponte did not discuss specific interrogation techniques, but the CIA is known to have employed such methods as sleep deprivation, light and sound manipulation and “water-boarding,” in which a detainee is strapped to a board and made to fear he is in danger of drowning.
