Senators Right To Protect Geneva Accords
Last updated Monday, September 18, 2006 8:14 PM CDT in Opinion
Official Washington is in desperate need of a moment of clarity.
President Bush and the Senate are seriously at odds over the treatment of prisoners, captured terrorists, who are being held for questioning and possible trial.
The president and his administration want Congress to approve legislation authorizing "alternative" or "aggressive" interrogation methods. So far, the Senate has balked over White House demands that they essentially rewrite elements of the Geneva Convention, which codifies the treatment of prisoners of war.
This isn't your typical election-year Washington gridlock with Republicans on one side and Democrats on the other. The Senate debate is being driven by three Republican senators -- John McCain of Arizona, John Warner of Virginia and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina -- with the backing of Gen. Colin Powell, former secretary of state as well as a past chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The Supreme Court ruled in June that the Geneva Conventions on the rights of wartime detainees do apply to suspected terrorists being held in CIA custody. That decision apparently curtailed or halted the interrogations and the Bush administration turned over 14 prisoners who were in CIA custody to military officials at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
What is at issue now is Common Article 3 of the conventions, which bans "inhuman treatment" of prisoners and "outrages upon personal dignity."
Arguing for the administration, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales claims the provisions of the Geneva accords are too vague and U.S. personnel need specific authority for the use of interrogation techniques to shield them from possible prosecution as war criminals. And according to Stephen Hadley, the president's national security adviser, many prisoners suspected of having important information are trained in counterinterrogation techniques and it was only through the use of these alternative techniques that CIA interrogators were able to get information from them.
Powell, McCain and the other senators say the debate is not about being soft on terrorists, but about the United States defending its moral authority and protecting the rights of American servicemen now and in any future conflicts.
"They are people that when they are in our custody, they deserve nothing except the fundamental rights that all prisoners have under the Geneva Conventions," McCain, a former prisoner of war himself, said of the terrorists. But he added that "We should not do things which would be condemned by everyone in the world."
No one in the administration has told us what supposedly legal interrogation techniques they need Congress to authorize and the Senate is right to hold firm against vague promises that everything that has or will be done is legal.
If the president is asking Congress to authorize the use of "aggressive techniques" like the use of electric shock, sleep deprivation, "cold cells" and waterboarding he needs to make that clear. The American people have a right to know what is being done in their name. Such a request should be rejected and we hope the Senate will hold firm to the moral high ground.
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