October 27, 2005
On Tuesday, the Washington Post published a front-page
article revealing that Vice President Dick Cheney and CIA Director
Porter Goss met with Arizona Senator John McCain last week to
urge the modification of a Senate provision banning the US government
from carrying out "cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment"
of prisoners in its custody.
Cheney’s secret visit, which was revealed only after it
was leaked to the Post, came in response to an amendment
attached to a military appropriations bill, approved by a 90-9
Senate vote on October 5. The amendment states, "No individual
in the custody or under the physical control of the United States
Government, regardless of nationality or physical location, shall
be subject to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment."
This amendment, sponsored by McCain, was approved despite statements
from the Bush administration that the president would veto the
entire appropriations bill if it contained any language restricting
the treatment of detainees. The response of the Bush administration
to the passage of the amendment has been not simply to attempt
tohave it removed, but to alter it to include language explicitly
sanctioning abusive methods.
Citing two unnamed sources, one of whom spoke "without
authorization and on the condition of anonymity," the Washington
Post reported that Cheney’s proposed change "states
that the measure barring inhumane treatment shall not apply to
counterterrorism operations conducted abroad or to operations
conducted by 'an element of the United States government’
other than the Defense Department."
The latter provision is meant primarily to exempt the CIA from
any prohibition on torture. However, the proposed change appears
to be broad enough to exempt any agencies engaged in what the
government declares to be "counterterrorism operations."
Indicating that the administration wants to ensure that the
military, as well as the CIA, is given broad latitude, the Post
reports, "Other sources said the vice president is
also still fighting a second provision of the Senate-passed legislation,
which requires that detainees in Defense Department custody anywhere
in the world may be subjected only to interrogation techniques
approved and listed in the Army’s Field Manual."
The newspaper reported that McCain rejected Cheney’s demands.
The Senate amendment is not included in a House version of the
appropriations bill, and it is still uncertain whether it will
end up in the final version to be sent to the president. White
House officials have denounced the Senate amendment for "undermining
presidential authority," and the administration continues
to threaten to veto the bill if the amendment is included in the
final version.
The exposure of the Bush administration’s attempts to
secure explicit authorization for torture comes amidst further
revelations of torture and killing by US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) this week released a
report investigating the deaths of 44 individuals taken prisoner
in Iraq and Afghanistan. Of those 44, which may constitute only
a fraction of the total number of individuals who have died while
in American concentration camps and prisons, 21 were found to
be definite homicides. Most of these prisoners died either of
asphyxiation or blunt force trauma, or both. In other words, they
were beaten and strangled to death.
Commenting on the report, Anthony Romero, Executive Director
of the ACLU, said, "There is no question that US interrogations
have resulted in deaths. High-ranking officials who knew about
the torture and sat on their hands and those who created and endorsed
these policies must be held accountable."
The implications of the language proposed by Cheney are far-reaching,
and the proposal has provoked intense opposition within the political
and media establishment. In an editorial published in the New
York Times on Wednesday, the newspaper stated that Cheney’s
proposals would give the CIA the power "to mistreat and torture
prisoners as long as that behavior was part of 'counterterrorism
operations conducted abroad’ and they were not American citizens.
That would neatly legalize the illegal prisons the CIA is said
to be operating around the world and obviate the need for the
torture outsourcing known as extraordinary rendition." The
Times added, "It also raises disturbing questions
about Iraq, which the Bush administration has falsely labeled
a counterterrorism operation."
The very appearance of the original Post article, as
well as the broad support that the original amendment received
within the Senate, is indicative of opposition within ruling circles
to the Bush administration’s open embrace of torture as a
matter of state policy.
An editorial appearing Wednesday in the Washington Post
did not mince words in denouncing Cheney’s intervention.
His actions, the newspaper declared, demonstrated that "this
vice president has become an open advocate of torture."
The editorial went on to note that Cheney’s role in demanding
that the Senate resolution be modified is not surprising. "The
vice president has been a prime mover behind the Bush administration’s
decision to violate the Geneva Conventions and the UN Convention
Against Torture and to break with decades of past practice by
the US military," the newspaper wrote. "These decisions
at the top have led to hundreds of documented cases of abuse,
torture and homicide in Iraq and Afghanistan." While the
Post does not say so explicitly, these statements brand
the second highest executive official in the country as a war
criminal.
The conflict between the administration and the Senate over
the amendment does not reflect differences over the basic aims
of the White House. All the parties involved—including McCain
and the editorial boards of the Times and the Post—support
the war in Iraq and the general drive for American global hegemony.
The amendment itself has received public support from many retired
military officials, including Bush’s former secretary of
state, Colin Powell.
However, there are intense divisions over the means for obtaining
these ends. What has brought them to the fore is the disastrous
result for American imperialism of the military adventure in Iraq.
There is growing concern within broad sections of the ruling
establishment that the open use of abusive interrogation methods
is doing severe damage to the long-term interests of American
imperialism. One of the main concerns of McCain, the Post,
and the broader sections of the political establishment for whom
they speak is that the Bush administration has undermined the
ability of the US to present itself as a protector of human rights.
The citation of "human rights abuses" committed by
other governments has long been a tool of American policy, and
the Post editorial points out that "The State Department
annually issues a report criticizing other governments for violating"
an international treaty banning "cruel, inhuman and degrading"
treatment of prisoners. The war in Iraq itself was, in part, justified
on the grounds that Saddam Hussein tortured and killed his own
people.
Without the moral trappings of "human rights," in
which American imperialism has long sought to clothe its predatory
actions, US foreign policy would be hampered—it would no
longer have a plausible pretext to impose economic sanctions,
carry out military actions on foreign territory, or launch full-scale
invasions and occupations.
The administration’s open contempt for international law
has undercut the pretext which the US ruling elite has used to
pursue its interests for decades. It is difficult for the US to
use alleged violations of international law—by Iran, for
example—as a justification for military intervention when
the US itself so brazenly violates fundamental components of international
law, including the Geneva Conventions.
Those within the military, the intelligence agencies and the
foreign policy establishment who have come into conflict with
the White House fear that the actions of the administration, in
particular its prosecution of the war in Iraq and its treatment
of detainees, have severely undermined the international image
of the American government. The US is rightly reviled by the majority
of the world’s population, which sees it as the principal
source of war and barbarism.
Opposition to the administration also reflects worries within
the US military that the same methods employed by the US in torturing,
humiliating, and killing prisoners will be used by insurgents
on American prisoners.
Finally, there is growing concern over the growth of antiwar
sentiment within the United States, fueled by the worsening quagmire
in Iraq. This oppositional sentiment has been intensified by the
abhorrent images of American brutality, revealed most starkly
in the photos from Abu Ghraib. Under the Bush administration,
the ugly face of American imperialism has been revealed more fully
than ever before, and in the eyes of broad sections of the American
population the legitimacy of the political system is increasingly
being called into question.
McCain and the rest of the Senate know full well that the US
has used abusive methods, both directly and by proxy, for decades
and will continue to do so whether or not the amendment passes.
However, they would like to restore at least some credibility
to the democratic façade.
On the other hand, the moves by the Bush administration to
undercut the Senate amendment reflect the degree to which it and
the sections of the ruling elite it represents are wedded to the
use of torture in the pursuit of US imperialist aims.
Cheney’s visit to McCain comes at a point of deep crisis
within the administration, which is beset from all sides. It is
facing mounting opposition from within the Republican Party to
Bush’s latest Supreme Court nominee, plummeting poll ratings,
the effects of the administration’s disastrous handling of
Hurricane Katrina, the worsening situation in Iraq and the ever-rising
toll of military casualties and deaths, and a grand jury investigation
that could result in indictments against top administration officials,
including Cheney’s chief of staff and even the vice president
himself.
That Cheney would nevertheless personally intervene to try
to change the amendment is an indication of how deeply committed
the administration is to a policy that employs abuse and torture.