Anti-torture measure protects U.S. troops

Miami Herald | November 1, 2005

Although the Senate overwhelmingly approved an anti-torture amendment three weeks ago, the White House continues to insist that the CIA be exempted from the ban on abuse. The Senate should not budge from its principled and morally justifiable opposition to torture.

Code of conduct

The U.S. government should exempt no one, including CIA agents acting clandestinely against terror suspects, from a basic code of conduct that ensures captives will not be brutalized. Nothing justifies an exemption, not even the war on terror. Any exception to this mos basic tenet would put the United States on a slippery slope of ''situational morality'' that would create confusion, tarnish America's image and endanger U.S. troops and citizens abroad.

Shame on the Bush administration for its hardheaded insistence on a special exemption for CIA operatives. Last Thursday, Vice President Dick Cheney and CIA Director Porter Goss made a special appeal to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to support the exemption for the agency. They argued that the president needed flexibility on the prohibition against torture in the global war on terrorism. Mr. McCain, who was captured and tortured by the North during the Vietnamese War, rejected the suggestion, according to a report in The New York Times.

Mr. McCain understands first-hand the savagery and injustice of torture. The administration should listen to his counsel against sanctioning abuse. We don't suggest that the United States coddle terrorism suspects. U.S. troops and agents have many options at their disposal, psychological and physical, that enable them to get information from suspects. But to have a fuzzy line against beating, abusing or torturing people in U.S. custody is an open invitation to disaster.

In Afghanistan and Iraq, CIA employees have been implicated in at least four deaths of suspects, although no CIA operative has been charged with a crime. One case involves an Iraqi who died during an interrogation at the Abu Ghraib prison; another involves an Afghan suspect who was dunked in frigid water and died of hypothermia. A third case involved a former Iraqi general who suffocated after being stuffed headfirst in a sleeping bag; and the fourth involved an Afghan prisoner who died after being stripped of his clothes and left outside in the cold.

Torture unnecessary

Our country is a great superpower that has many resources and sophisticated equipment with which to obtain information. Using torture is an unnecessary shortcut. It produces questionable information at best. It taints America's reputation as an exemplar of justice. Worse still, it tells other countries that U.S. captives are fair game for abuse and savagery.

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