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Cheney asks that the CIA be allowed to continue torture
By Associated Press
11/05/05 "AP"
-- -- 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 memos back to Cheney's
office that he believes led to U.S. troops abusing prisoners in
Iraq.
Lawrence Wilkerson, Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff
in the first Bush administration and a former colonel, said Thursday
that the view of Cheney's office was put in "carefully couched"
terms in memos 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" to extract
better intelligence.
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.
© 2005 Times Argus
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