I would have found this much more convincing if he could have brought himself to say this live last week. Or, better yet, about two years ago.
Politics News Article | Reuters.com: Alberto Gonzales, seeking to win Senate confirmation as President Bush's attorney general, declared that any torture by American personnel would be unlawful, according to written responses released on Tuesday to questions by senators.
“As the president has made clear, the United States will not engage in torture and U.S. personnel are prohibited from doing so,” Gonzales wrote in response to a question by assistant Senate Democratic leader Richard Durbin of Illinois.
For some reason these assurances do not put my mind at rest, especially since this is a guy who had meetings with his underlings in which they made lists of which torture techniques would be acceptable for use in interrogating suspects. As I remember, water-boarding was O.K., but ripping out fingernails was a no-no. Until he defines what he means by “torture” I’ll continue to assume he’s lying (and when did any of these war criminals ever tell the truth?).
See Marty’s comments over on the Balkanization page — you mind will be less at rest.
“Mr. Gonzales declined to say in his written responses to the committee what interrogation tactics would constitute torture in his view or which ones should be banned.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/19/politics/19gonzales.html
And then, the CIA’s “extreme interrogation measures” aren’t included anyway.
I have about 40 comments on this subject so I’ll be brief.
Torture is bad.
Gonzales wrote a memo about it.
The memo did not make policy.
Let’s get on with something more important.
THX
Does this apply to contractors? I’m not referring here to haliburton aka brown and root, but to
Corrections Corporation of America.