NEWS: Ashcroft refuses to provide Congress with torture memos
Posted on Tue, Jun. 08, 2004
By Karen Branch-Brioso
philly.com
Ashcroft returned to a defense of the executive branch's prerogative to withhold its internal communications. Almost every Democrat on the committee to the last one, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., pressed him to answer, again, why he wouldn't release the memos.
"I am refusing to disclose these memos because I believe it is essential to the operation of the executive branch that the president have the opportunity to get information from his attorney general that is confidential," Ashcroft said.
Durbin challenged Ashcroft, saying: "Sir, attorney general, with all due respect, your personal belief is not a law, and you are not citing a law and you are not claiming executive privilege. And, frankly, that is what contempt of Congress is all about. You have to give us a specific legal authority which gives you the right to say no or the president has to claim privilege. And you've done neither."
(KRT) - WASHINGTON - Attorney General John Ashcroft faced off Tuesday with Senate Democrats who demanded that he release memos in which Bush administration lawyers reportedly said that torture may be justified when used against captured al-Qaida terrorists abroad.
Ashcroft repeatedly refused to disclose the leaked memos, including one from the Justice Department in 2002 detailed by the Washington Post. That memo suggested international laws against torture, including the Geneva Convention, may be unconstitutional restraints on the president in U.S. interrogations of terrorists.
"First of all, this administration rejects torture," Ashcroft said. He later said that "the president has issued no such order" to immunize U.S. interrogators from prosecution for torture of imprisoned terrorists. He said he would not release the memos because President George W. Bush had the right as chief executive to confidential legal advice from the Justice Department.
Critics noted that, in light of congressional investigations of the U.S. military abuse of prisoners in Iraq, the documents could well provide insight into whether the memos could have prompted a turning point in military treatment of prisoners.
Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., asked whether Bush had followed the memos' advice with orders to authorize torture and held up a photograph that portrayed abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu-Ghraib prison.
"This is what directly results when you have that kind of memorandum out there," Kennedy told Ashcroft during his three-hour appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Ashcroft replied, "Let me completely reject the notion that anything that this president has done or the Justice Department has done has directly resulted in the kinds of atrocities which were cited." He said the government is prosecuting U.S. military officials who participated in the conduct at Abu-Ghraib. "That is false," he said of Kennedy's comment. "It is an inappropriate conclusion."
Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., noted that some of the leaked memos, first reported Monday by the Wall Street Journal, were in draft form: "I'm not sure who's seen those memos or whether they were final drafts or not - on torture. But I think you are wise not to express an ultimate decision on the absolute, ultimate power of a president of the United States to protect the people of this country."
The Post-Dispatch obtained a draft of one of the documents - a March 6, 2003, "Working Group Report on Detainee Interrogations in the Global War on Terrorism."
"In order to respect the president's inherent constitutional authority to manage a military campaign, (the prohibition against torture) must be construed as inapplicable to interrogations undertaken pursuant to his Commander-in-Chief authority," reads one passage that seeks to explain why the federal law banning torture would not apply. " ... Congress may no more regulate the president's ability to detain and interrogate enemy combatants than it may regulate his ability to direct troop movements in the battlefield."
Michael Ratner, president of the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, said Ashcroft's refusal to provide the memos is particularly vexing because the administration has said the Abu-Ghraib abuses were isolated.
"These memos are clear that they were authorizing torture techniques, and there's a real obligation now to get to the bottom of things," said Ratner, who provide the draft copy to the Post-Dispatch.
The Democrats on the Judiciary Committee repeatedly drew the same connection. During Biden's questioning, he held aloft a photograph from Abu-Ghraib of a U.S. military official holding a snarling dog just inches from a cowering prisoner.
Ashcroft's responded that the Justice Department would not shirk from prosecuting in such circumstances: "I condemn torture. I don't think it's productive, let alone justified."
"I don't either, and, by the way, there's a reason why we sign these treaties," said Biden, who then raised his voice: "To protect my son in the military. That's why we have these treaties, so that if Americans are captured, they are not tortured. That's the reason - in case anybody forgets it."
Biden's son Beau, 35, is a lawyer and first lieutenant in the Judge Advocate General Corps assigned to the Delaware National Guard. The unit has not been called up or deployed, according to Biden spokesman Chip Unruh.
Ashcroft's son Andy, 26, is a Navy ensign who is now stateside after returning "a few weeks ago" after from the USS McFaul in the Persian Gulf, Justice spokesman Mark Corallo said.
"As a person whose son is in the military now on active duty and has been in the Gulf for the last several months, I'm aware of those considerations, and I care about your son," Ashcroft told Biden. "My son happens to be stateside right now for more training, but he's scheduled to go back."
Ashcroft apologized for the mistaken arrest of Brandon Mayfield, a lawyer in Portland, Ore. Mayfield was held as a material witness for 14 days after the FBI mistakenly said his fingerprint had been found on a bag used by the terrorists in the deadly Madrid train bombings.
But then Ashcroft returned to a defense of the executive branch's prerogative to withhold its internal communications. Almost every Democrat on the committee to the last one, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., pressed him to answer, again, why he wouldn't release the memos.
"I am refusing to disclose these memos because I believe it is essential to the operation of the executive branch that the president have the opportunity to get information from his attorney general that is confidential," Ashcroft said.
Durbin challenged Ashcroft, saying: "Sir, attorney general, with all due respect, your personal belief is not a law, and you are not citing a law and you are not claiming executive privilege. And, frankly, that is what contempt of Congress is all about. You have to give us a specific legal authority which gives you the right to say no or the president has to claim privilege. And you've done neither."
The committee's chairman, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, asked Ashcroft whether the memos were classified.
"Some of these memos may be classified in some ways for some purposes," Ashcroft responded. "I don't know." |
