Bush Gets His Way

Julian E. Barnes and Richard Simon write in the Los Angeles Times (in a story headlined, "Bush Bows to Senators on Detainees"): "A Senate staffer involved in negotiations said [the language of the accord] would ban the most outrageous of CIA methods, including water boarding -- a tactic in which detainees are made to feel as if they're drowning -- and mock executions."

And here's precisely the kind of story to watch out for:

Anne Plummer Flaherty writes for the Associated Press: "Republicans hope that an accord reached between the Bush administration and GOP senators on the treatment of terror-war detainees means the party can go on a campaign-season offensive on the issue of protecting the country. . . .

"The agreement was hailed by human rights groups and seen by many as the president caving in when his usual Republican support crumbled."

Hadley Speaks

Here's the transcript of an extraordinarily unhelpful telephone briefing from national security adviser Steve Hadley yesterday afternoon.

He expressed delight about the accord and how "all Republicans coming together," and repeatedly referred to a new legal "clarity" -- that he wouldn't clarify. Among the questions he dodged:

* "Does that mean that every single technique used in interrogation up until now is, as you see it, permissible under this agreement?"

* "Just to follow up, is it conceivable that a technique that was used in the past would not be permissible henceforth after this process is finished?"

* "What did the administration give up in this negotiation? Because it seems like you got everything that you asked for."

ACLU Watch

Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU's Washington office released this statement : "This is a compromise of America's commitment to the rule of law. The proposal would make the core protections of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions irrelevant and unenforceable. It deliberately provides a 'get-out-of-jail-free card' to the administration's top torture officials, and backdates that card nine years. These are tactics expected of repressive regimes, not the American government.

"Also under the proposal, the president would have the authority to declare what is -- and what is not -- a grave breach of the War Crimes Act, making the president his own judge and jury. This provision would give him unilateral authority to declare certain torture and abuse legal and sound. In a telling move, during a call with reporters today, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley would not even answer a question about whether waterboarding would be permitted under the agreement."

Lederman Watch

Georgetown Law School professor and blogger Marty Lederman has the complete language of the accord, and concludes: "It's not subtle at all, and it only takes 30 seconds or so to see that the senators have capitulated entirely, that the U.S. will hereafter violate the Geneva Conventions by engaging in cold cell, long time standing, etc., and that there will be very little pretense about it. In addition to the elimination of habeas rights in section 6, the bill would delegate to the president the authority to interpret 'the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions' 'for the United States,' except that the bill itself would define certain 'grave breaches' of Common Article 3 to be war crimes. Some Senators apparently are taking comfort in the fact that the Administration's interpretation would have to be made, and defended, publicly. That's a small consolation, I suppose; but I'm confident the creative folks in my former shop at [the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel] -- you know, those who concluded that waterboarding is not torture -- will come up with something."