Do We Torture?

"Earlier this year, State Department officials rejected a draft of the executive order because they believed that the language was too permissive and could open the Bush administration to challenges from American allies that the White House was legalizing methods that approach torture. Some Bush administration officials, including members of Vice President Dick Cheney's staff, pushed for a more expansive interpretation of Geneva Convention language and for interrogation methods that the C.I.A. had not even requested."

Greg Miller writes in the Los Angeles Times: "The order places no restriction on employing coercive methods -- such as sleep deprivation and the use of so-called stress positions -- that are expressly off-limits for the military and domestic law enforcement agencies. . . .

"Critics called Bush's order frustratingly vague and said its most specific language addressed abuses that occurred at Abu Ghraib and other military facilities that were never part of the CIA's interrogation program. . . .

"'It certainly was a positive thing to see express prohibitions on things like sexual humiliation,' said Jumana Musa, advocacy director for Amnesty International in Washington. 'But the places where [the document] is silent speak volumes.'"

On the Sunday Shows

National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell was on NBC's Meet the Press yesterday.

Ben Feller writes for the Associated Press: "The nation's spy chief on Sunday would not identify what CIA interrogators are allowed to do in getting information from terror suspects, but tried to assure critics that torture is not condoned or used. . . .

"When asked if the permissible techniques would be troubling to the American people if the enemy used them against a U.S. citizen, McConnell said: 'I would not want a U.S. citizen to go through the process. But it is not torture, and there would be no permanent damage to that citizen.'"

The United States's international reputation may have been irreparably damaged by our association with torture, but in McConnell's view, our ambiguity on the issue has served us well.

Speaking of terror suspects, he said: "Because they believe these techniques might involve torture and they don't understand them, they tend to speak to us, talk to us in very -- a very candid way."

Bush's homeland security adviser Frances Fragos Townsend was on CNN's Late Edition, where she said some techniques used earlier are no longer allowed.

"It's a different program going forward today, that's correct," she said.

Torture Opinion Watch

David Cole writes for Salon: "Once upon a time, a U.S. official's condemnation of torture was a statement of moral principle. Today, it is an opportunity for obfuscation. . . .