Bush Gets His Way

Here's a question reporters should be asking: If, as Suskind has alleged, the administration is aware that those harsh CIA interrogation tactics don't really work -- and no one is currently in CIA detention anyway -- then why is this such an important issue for the White House? One possible answer: That this has nothing to do with the future; that it's about giving them cover for their actions in the past.

Here's another question reporters should be asking: Have the senators been assured that Vice President Cheney won't get Bush to attach a "signing statement" to this bill, asserting his inherent powers, as he did the last time he signed torture legislation?

Finally, as the White House gears up to use detainee policy as a political issue, it is incumbent on the press to remind the public that there are not only two choices: Doing it Bush's way and letting terrorists go free. Even if the Democrats aren't coherent about other alternatives, the press should be.

The Coverage

It's the penultimate paragraph of R. Jeffrey Smith and Charles Babington 's article in The Washington Post this morning that tells the story in a nutshell: "A senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said in an interview that Bush essentially got what he asked for in a different formulation that allows both sides to maintain their concerns were addressed. 'We kind of take the scenic route, but we get there,' the official said."

(Interestingly enough, Dan Bartlett, counselor to the president, gave a nearly identical quote on the record to the New York Times .)

Smith and Babington write: "Yesterday's final marathon talks occurred in Vice President Cheney's little-known office on the second floor of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. . . .

"The agreement coalesced around two crucial issues: the GOP senators' insistence that Bush not be allowed to reinterpret the meaning of the Geneva Conventions, and the White House's insistence that CIA agents not be subject to prosecution for aggressive interrogation techniques -- tactics that did not constitute torture but were more aggressive than 'simple assault.'

"The biggest hurdle, Senate sources said, was convincing administration officials that lawmakers never would accept language that allowed Bush to appear to be reinterpreting the Geneva Conventions. Once that was settled, they said, the White House poured most of its energy into defining 'cruel or inhuman treatment' that would constitute crimes under the War Crimes Act."

Rick Klein writes in the Boston Globe: "Unlike the Geneva Conventions, the War Crimes Act is an American law that applies only to U.S. officials and is not part of an international treaty. Rewriting the War Crimes Act to outlaw specific acts -- and implicitly permitting others -- does not erode the Geneva Conventions, which broadly state that countries can't engage in 'outrages upon personal dignity,' said Senator Lindsey O. Graham, Republican of South Carolina."

Margaret Talev writes for McClatchy Newspapers that Graham "said he believed the compromise would prohibit simulated drowning, or 'water-boarding' as a CIA interrogation technique.

"But Graham didn't rule out other aggressive techniques such as sleep deprivation or playing loud music. He said the legislation wouldn't spell out which 'alternative interrogation techniques' are permitted and which are prohibited. . . .

"Eugene Fidell, the president of the National Association of Military Justice, which serves as a watchdog over military prosecutions, said details of the deal were too scant to render an analysis. He sharply criticized the closed-door negotiations, saying the terms should have been the subject of public Senate hearings."