Cheney Pushes Senate For Torture Exemption

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Cheney Pushes Senate For Torture Exemption

 

 

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Cheney Pushes Senate For CIA Exemption

 

POSTED: 1:03 am EST November 5, 2005

UPDATED: 1:03 am EST November 5, 2005

 

WASHINGTON -- 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.

 

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 of Alabama, while Arizona Sen. John McCain 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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