A Legacy of Torture

The problem, he writes, is that the Army Field Manual "does not exhaust the universe of lawful interrogation measures available to the Republic to defend itself against hardened terrorists -- techniques not useful or suited to the Army's circumstances but fully consistent with the Geneva Conventions and with current United States law."

But wait: Is the CIA actually willing to state that it adheres to every one of the manual's prohibitions -- including the one against waterboarding? That would be a step forward -- and someone should ask Mansfield to make a definitive statement.

The Executive Power Argument

I didn't mean to suggest that Myers, in that New York Times story I mentioned at the top, wasn't on to something. He is.

"The veto deepens his battle with increasingly assertive Democrats in Congress over issues at the heart of his legacy. As his presidency winds down, he has made it clear he does not intend to bend in this or other confrontations on issues from the war in Iraq to contempt charges against his chief of staff, Joshua B. Bolten, and former counsel, Harriet E. Miers. . . .

"Mr. Bush's veto -- the ninth of his presidency, but the eighth in the past 10 months with Democrats in control of Congress -- underscored his determination to preserve many of the executive prerogatives his administration has claimed in the name of fighting terrorism, and to enshrine them into law.

"Mr. Bush is fighting with Congress over the expansion of powers under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and over the depth of the American security commitments to Iraq once the United Nations mandate for international forces there expires at the end of the year.

"The administration has also moved ahead with the first military tribunals of those detained at Guant¿namo Bay, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, despite calls to try them in civilian courts.

"All are issues that turn on presidential powers. And as he has through most of his presidency, he built his case on the threat of terrorism. 'The fact that we have not been attacked over the past six and a half years is not a matter of chance,' Mr. Bush said in his radio remarks, echoing comments he made Thursday at a ceremony marking the fifth anniversary of the creation of the Department of Homeland Security."

More Opinion

Word maven William Safire writes in the New York Times Magazine: "If the word torture, rooted in the Latin for 'twist,' means anything (and it means 'the deliberate infliction of excruciating physical or mental pain to punish or coerce'), then waterboarding is a means of torture."

The editorial board of The Independent of London writes: "Anyone who imagined that, with the clock running down on his tenure in the White House and America's attention concentrated on the election of his successor, George Bush could do no more serious damage to America's reputation in the world must now surely be rueing their complacency. . . .

"The President shows no signs of understanding the damage done by giving free rein to interrogators. It is a sure-fire way to produce gross prisoner abuses of the sort we saw at Abu Ghraib in Baghdad. Mr Bush may claim until he is blue in the face that 'we do not torture', but torture is exactly what his administration has facilitated with its disgracefully relaxed attitude to constraining interrogators."

Jack Balkin blogs that "it is worth recognizing Bush's veto-- and indeed, many other future actions and acts of intransigence-- as part of an endgame strategy. At this point in Bush's Presidency he deals from a position of weakness, not strength. His major goals are to prevent criminal prosecutions of himself (unlikely in any event) and his aides (more likely), to keep the public from finding out much of what he and his advisors actually did and ordered done during his presidency (his fight for immunity for telecom companies who engaged in illegal surveillance should be understood as part of this larger strategy), to entrench the U.S. presence in Iraq for the foreseeable future, and do what he can to ensure that John McCain becomes President, or failing that, Hillary Clinton as a second best solution."