WASHINGTON, March 11, 2008
Bush's Veto Of Anti-Torture Bill Stands
House Democrats Fail To Override President's Veto Of Bill Banning Waterboarding
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The bill would have banned waterboarding, a technique which makes the person being interrogated feel like he is drowning. (CBS)
The vetoed legislation would have limited the CIA to using only the 19 interrogation methods approved in the Army field manual. That guidebook bans the use of waterboarding, a technique that simulates drowning. CIA Director Michael Hayden has confirmed that the spy agency used the technique on three terrorist suspects in 2002 and 2003.
The 225-188 House roll call was 51 votes short of the two-thirds majority required to overturn a veto. Bush has vetoed seven bills during his tenure, and only once has Congress mustered the votes to override his veto.
The interrogation limits are part of a bill authorizing intelligence spending for the current fiscal year. Bush vetoed it on Saturday. It is the first intelligence authorization bill produced by Congress in three years.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, attempted to frame the vote as a human rights referendum. "This is about torture," he said, a refrain repeated by other Democrats who spoke in support of the override.
Republicans portrayed their support for Bush's veto as a stand against a bill they say is riddled with pork-barrel projects like a National Drug Intelligence Center and a study of the national security implications of global warming.
"This is an ill-advised bill," said Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee. He likened the bill to giving al Qaeda terrorists the American "playbook" on interrogation.
"What are the priorities of this House? How are we going to keep America safe?" he said.
The president said his veto was not specifically about waterboarding but about wanting the CIA to have the flexibility to use legal and effective interrogation methods that are not listed in the Army field manual.
"I cannot sign into law a bill that would prevent me, and future presidents, from authorizing the CIA to conduct a separate, lawful intelligence program, and from taking all lawful actions necessary to protect Americans from attack," Bush said in a statement.
Nevertheless, Bush said the attorney general has deemed waterboarding legal under domestic and international law.
Hayden has prohibited the CIA from using waterboarding since 2006, but it remains a possibility in future interrogations. It can be approved for use on a case-by-case basis by the president and attorney general.
The 19 interrogation techniques allowed in the Army Field Manual include the "good cop/bad cop" routine; making prisoners think they are in another country's custody; and separating a prisoner from others for up to 30 days.
Among the techniques the field manual prohibits are:
- hooding prisoners or putting duct tape across their eyes.
- stripping prisoners naked.
- forcing prisoners to perform or mimic sexual acts.
- beating, burning or physically hurting them in other ways.
- subjecting prisoners to hypothermia or mock executions.
© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.Video and Galleries from U.S.
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See all 307 Comments! SHAME ON AMERICA AND THE REPUBLICANS !
Fully agree and love it.
Waterboarding. Hmmmmm. Maybe they should try it on Pelosi and Reid. It might wash some brains, not to mention guts, into their cowardly, Islamonazi appeasing heads.
if you had brains and guts, you''d be a Republican. And an American.
Not bozo losers of the Hitlerian variety...
Hmmm. Real AMERICAN name that.
The pompous jerk can go to work for Calderon. He''s probably as corrupt as any Mexican policeman.
Posted by Pelosisaho2 at 09:20 PM : Mar 11, 2008
Please. All your self-agrandizing and verbal whacking-off shows just goes to show how very insecure you are. And small.
Lets start using the the real bullets. Give them a pill in the leg and lets hear them talk.
Only Hitlerites and Islamoroach apologists will cry over it. And, unfortunately, a guy like McLame who equates what he went through with doing it to a roach. Hint, John - the Roaches didn''t sign the Geneva Convention, nor did they give Berry Berenson and all of the innocent women and children on board the doomed airliners a pass.
Again, torture and kill them all. Or all of the Libs in Denver should move to Tehran. After all, that town slaughtered innocent Indian women and children at Sand Creek.
A typical crybaby Lib who never served this country but knows how to pull it down, or give a roach who''d sooner kill him as me a break.
Go back to the crayons, Rog or maybe that Ga-ye flick you''re watching. Oh, don''t forget Osama doesn''t allow that in Shariaville.
Posted by Pelosisaho2 at 09:31 PM : Mar 11, 2008
Typical. But I got your number. You conservatives are pretty much all the same - totally insecure. That''s why you suckle at the teet of the army of rightwing media maggots like Limbaugh, Coulter, Malkin, Drudge, Hannity, O''Reilly, and the countless others who make you feel secure when us mean ole libruls beat ya up with ''logic'' and ''facts'' and ''reason.''
You need them like a drug.
Now this administation makes it legal for us to use it against others!!!
What a Shame!
Why waste the water--lets let Bushie be the first to be "legally" waterboarded!!!
Why waste the water--lets let Bushie be the first to be "legally" waterboarded!!!
Shameful. Un-American. Wrong.
Posted by ontheleft at 09:31 PM : Mar 11, 2008
Wish I could believe that. What with the constitution being used the way it has by King George II martial law is his last ditch effort to make sure his legacy continues. Then appoint a cronnie to be "President". Throw out the elections. He knows he not in this election. If he is not in it then it probably is not worth having. Might just as well appoint the next dictator under his martial law.
"Bush is the Devil."
No, Cheney is the devil - GW Bush is just the puppet sitting on the devils knee.
What a pile of BS? Are these the same republicans who loaded up bill after bill when they had a majority with pork?
Do these people think we are stupid enough to buy their story?
All I have to say is come next January they can go into the private sector and get one of those great jobs they created under Bush''s leadership. Can you imagine running into them at Walmart when to step up to greet you!!
Go Obama!!!!
Posted by bozworth4 at 09:56 PM : Mar 11, 2008
If he does that - or anything like it - the term ''insurgent'' will no longer be exclusively associated with Iraq.
Posted by RandyNason at 09:40 PM
No, the bad economy can be blamed on the homosexuals. You''ll have to ask a right wing lunatic for the correlation. I''m sure they can dig up a bible verse to back up their point.
"If it is a question of waterboarding or setting on fire some roach who, like Mo Atta is fully prepared to slaughter 3,000 or 3,000,000 Americans, then any kind of torture is fine by me."
GW Bush was prepared to slaughter tens if not hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians.
Can we torture him?
What about the "secret" bombing of Cambodia? Hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians were slaughtered by Nixon who authorized it.
Should we have tortured him?
Regardless, I''m up for the torture of GW Bush.
Heck, I''ll even volunteer my services for free.
Heck, I''''ll even volunteer my services for free.
Posted by mcdazz at 10:18 PM : Mar 11, 2008
+ report abuse
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oh I am sure you would...you and the rest of these terrorist has the same desire..I dont think I can tell the difference between a terrorist and a liberal..they sound the same..they think the same..they act the same
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jimmy carter and bill clinton pretty much emboldened these muslims to use terrorism to get thier ways..
SHOULD WE TORTURE THEM?
Man - ALL of the House Republicans must be chickenhawk armchair warriors.
I wonder if they''ll feel bad if the rest of the ice melts, and "whoever" can paddle a canoe across the Artic...or if our deepwater ports and drydocks become useless because land is suddenly a mile further shoreside...or if coastal navigation in a sub suddenly becomes an exercise in "ruh-roh - what was that?" because a bunch of *** that was shoreside washed out to sea...or if increasing storms wear out our aircraft faster...or if increasing rainfall in some areas results in our armor being more easily bogged down...or if increasing drought in other areas increases airborn particle wear on turbine blades or electrostatic discharge damage to command and control equipment...
No wonder it was easy for Bush to get the House Republicans to go to and stay in a war based upon lies - they ain''t got the sense a drill Sergeant expects a trainee to show up at boot with.
Either that, or they don''t want the military providing more evidence of global warming ''cuz that would cut into their owners'' profits...
Hmmm...
65 years ago, the US fought against Nazi Fascism and won. Today, we have become the very Nazis we fought against!
SIG HEIL, BUSH!!!!
sig heil, McCain????
"oh I am sure you would...you and the rest of these terrorist has the same desire..I dont think I can tell the difference between a terrorist and a liberal..they sound the same..they think the same..they act the same
SHOULD WE TORTURE THEM?"
Terrorists and Liberals are the same?
Nahh.
You see, the majority of Terrorists have a right wing view on the world - they tend to be the extreme right, and tend to be very Conservative, especially so in regards to religion.
This makes them exactly like the right wing christian Republicans that we currently have in power.
And it also means people like you.
So, you know exactly what it''s like to be a terrorist - just like GW Bush, ******** Cheney and the rest of the neo-con morons that have perverted our freedom.
Also in 1983 in San Jacinto County, Texas, James Parker, the county sheriff, and three deputies were criminally charged for handcuffing suspects to chairs, draping towels over their faces and pouring water over the towel until they confession. One victim described the experience"I thought I was being strangled to death. I couldn''t breath."The sheriff pleaded guilty and his deputies went to trial where they were convicted of civil rights violations. All received long prison sentences. U.S. District Judge James DeAnda told the former sheriff at sentencing, "The operation down there would embarrass the dictator of a country."
But not our president. He''s is as proud as can be of the "program," boasting about the fine intelligence we''ve extracted from the likes of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, while conveniently ignoring the bad information that sent our law enforcement on wild goose chases.
http://www.sptimes.com/2006/10/22/news_pf/Columns/We_sentenced_Japanese.shtml
And we continue to slaughter innocent Iraqi women and children for over priced oil that lines the pockets of the rich investors and oil company executives. Today the CIA tortures our enemy, tomorrow they torture you, and after all it is legal according to the attorney general.
It should be you that moves to Tehran since you sound no better of a person than them.
Posted by fiteit1 at 10:35 PM : Mar 11, 2008
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everytime you pump gas..you line the pockets of the same "rich investors and oil company executives"
for your edification..these bast ards WERE AND ARE STILL TORTURING AMERICANS..they been doing that humm since jimmy carter..
- Posted by Pelosisaho2
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Pelosisaho2 is a Shrewish American.
She is a member of the Shrewish Lobby.
+ report abuse
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i guess we all know who got fired or jealous of a ''shrew''
Posted by dragonwagon5 at 10:51 PM : Mar 11, 2008
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indeed.. i think it was a terrorist who blew up house in washington state..or was it the recruiting office in NY?? OHHH it was a liberal..YEP YEP CANT TELL TEH DIFFERENCE ANYMORE.
Posted by libsrweak
Yeah. Unfortunately, those who actually know what they''re talking about will tell you that torturing people - aside from legal and moral implications - doesn''t get useful or valid information. People will say anything, just to get the pain to stop. If you''d like to get together, I''ll give you a demo.
Posted by mcdazz at 10:53 PM : Mar 11, 2008
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and how are you going to ''pursuade'' us???BY BEGGING??
these people still walk away from a waterboarding session..DO YOU THINK THIER CAPTIVES WALKS AWAY??
How tragic.
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only a naive and stupid liberal can associate warfare with legality and morality..read the ''art of war''
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DO THESE TERRROIST HAVE POW??
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