President Barack Obama just announced that the U.S. government "must stand against torture wherever it takes place," but it's clear that his pledge does not apply to torture committed by officials from the Bush administration.
To mark the 25th anniversary of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Obama quietly released a statement on Friday in which he said, "My administration is committed to taking concrete actions against torture and to address the needs of its victims."
Obama's statement left out his decision
to "look forward, not backward" on the issue of Bush-era torture or how
he has discouraged any investigation of former President George W.
Bush, ex-Vice President Dick Cheney and other officials involved in
sanctioning and practicing torture, brutal tactics that human groups
claim killed at least 100 prisoners in U.S. custody
Instead, in his statement, Obama simply declared that "today, we join
the international community in reaffirming unequivocally the principles
behind that Convention, including the core principle that torture is
never justified."
The 1984 Convention Against Torture was
approved by 145 nations, including the United States which signed it in
1988 under President Ronald Reagan. He hailed the treaty as "a
significant step" in preventing torture, "an abhorrent practice
unfortunately still prevalent in the world today."
The
Convention declares that: "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever,
whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political
instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a
justification of torture."
Moreover, the Convention says individuals who resort to torture cannot
defend their actions by saying they were acting on orders from
superiors and it mandates that torturers be prosecuted wherever they
are found. According to that provision, "each state party is required
either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to
extradite them to other countries for prosecution."
In a May 20, 1988, message to the U.S. Senate, Reagan noted, "the core
provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international
cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on
so-called 'universal jurisdiction.'"
Evading the Treaty
It was this Convention, ratified by the Senate in 1994, that Bush
administration officials sought to bypass with legal memos, many
drafted by John Yoo of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel.
Obama's declaration on Friday comes at a time when the international
community has become acutely aware of the policy of torture implemented
by the Bush administration - and of Obama's resistance to any type of
comprehensive investigation whether it be by a congressional committee,
a blue-ribbon commission or the Justice Department.
It's also clear that the United States is guilty of many of the
offenses that the U.S. government has in the past accused "rogue
regimes" of committing, such as hiding torture victims from human
rights monitors. For example, under the Bush administration, the
military routinely hid prisoners in U.S. custody from the International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
In a Jan. 2, 2004, memo drafted for military police and interrogators
at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and signed by Col. Marc Warren, the top
legal adviser to Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who was commander of U.S.
forces in Iraq, was entitled "New plan to restrict Red Cross access to
Abu Ghraib." The contents of that memo have never been released.
In 2004, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld admitted that at the
request of then-CIA Director George Tenet, he authorized the U.S.
military in the fall of 2003 to hide an Iraqi prisoner from the ICRC
and other organizations that monitor the treatment of prisoners.
Rumsfeld told reporters at a June 17, 2004, press briefing that Tenet
sent him a letter asking the U.S. military to imprison the Iraqi who
was believed to be a high-ranking member of Ansar al-Islam, a Kurdish
terrorist group suspected of links to al-Qaeda. Tenet further told
Rumsfeld to be sure the detainee was kept off the prisoner rolls, which
he was for six months.
"We were asked not to immediately register the individual, and we did that," Rumsfeld told reporters at the time.
Documents obtained by the Senate Armed Services Committee go even
further. Minutes of an Oct. 2, 2002, meeting at which Lt. Col. Diane
Beaver, then the chief military lawyer at Guantanamo whose
responsibilities included working with the ICRC, discussed concealing
abusive interrogation tactics when ICRC officials visited.
"We may need to curb the harsher operations while ICRC is around,"
Beaver said, according to the minutes. "It is better not to expose them
to any controversial techniques."
"We have had many reports from Bagram [detention center in Afghanistan]
about sleep deprivation being used," responded Dave Becker of the
Defense Intelligence Agency.
"True, but officially it is not happening," Beaver said. "It is not
being reported officially. The ICRC is a serious concern. They will be
in and out, scrutinizing our operations, unless they are displeased and
decide to protest and leave. This would draw a lot of negative
attention."
Jonathan Fredman, who was the chief counsel for the CIA's
Counterterrorism Center, noted that the "the CIA is not held to the
same rules as the military" when it comes to using aggressive
techniques to interrogate detainees.
"In the past when the ICRC has made a big deal about certain detainees,
the DOD has 'moved' them away from the attention of the ICRC," Fredman
said. "The Torture Convention prohibits torture and cruel, inhumane and
degrading treatment. The US did not sign up on the second part, because
of the 8th amendment (cruel and unusual punishment), but we did sign
the part about torture. This gives us more license to use more
controversial techniques."
Beaver interjected: "We will need documentation to protect us."
High-Minded Words
Taking office in January, Obama announced that his administration would
not condone or practice torture, but he also opposed holding Bush
administration officials accountable out of fear that his actions might
be deemed vindictive. He has held to that position although Attorney
General Eric Holder and CIA Director Leon Panetta both agreed that the
near-drowning experience of waterboarding was torture.
Bush's Justice Department lawyers also approved a list of other torture
techniques to be used against so-called "high-value" prisoners,
including beatings, sleep deprivation for 11 consecutive days, placing
insects inside a confinement box to induce fear, exposing detainees to
extreme heat and cold, and shackling prisoners to the ceilings of their
prison cells or in other painful "stress positions."
Under the Convention Against Torture, the clear record that the Bush
administration used waterboarding and other brutal techniques should
have triggered the United States to conduct a full investigation and to
prosecute the offenders. If the United States refused, other nations
would be obligated to act under the principle of universality.
Instead, Obama's high-minded declaration on Friday substituted words for action.
"Torture violates United States and international law as well as human dignity," he said. "Torture is contrary to the founding documents of our country, and the fundamental values of our people. It diminishes the security of those who carry it out, and surrenders the moral authority that must form the basis for just leadership.
"That is why the United States must never engage in torture, and must stand against torture wherever it takes place."
