Dems Seek To Engage Administration In Battle Over Torture

Wed. Apr. 30, 2008


House and Senate lawmakers are employing several tactics -- legislative action, public hearings and demands for documents -- to expose secret Bush administration legal policies on national security and to ensure the government does not torture detainees.

The Senate Intelligence Committee met in closed session Tuesday to draft the FY09 intelligence authorization bill, which a source said includes an amendment from Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., intended to prevent the CIA from using torture to interrogate terrorism suspects.

The amendment would require U.S. intelligence agencies to abide by interrogation methods approved in the Army Field Manual.

Feinstein vowed in an interview before the committee markup to fight to include the provision, even though President Bush vetoed the FY08 intelligence authorization bill over a similar provision.

"I think this is a real point of principle," she said. "If the administration wants to veto it, then so be it."

The Intelligence Committee was unable to finish work on the bill Tuesday and plans to continue the markup Thursday. The markup session did not end because of any dispute or controversy, but because senators ran out of time, a source said.

Also on Tuesday, House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers and Judiciary Constitution Subcommittee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., pressed Attorney General Mukasey on Tuesday for a list of secret legal opinions issued by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel since 2001, as well as copies of unclassified rulings.

The lawmakers demanded that Mukasey present the list by May 9.

According to Conyers, the administration has based decisions on the Iraq war, prisoner interrogations and national security on guidance provided in the classified opinions, which have not been made available to Congress or the public.

"While we appreciate the need to hold closely certain types of information in certain circumstances, we are skeptical that more information regarding the department's analysis of relevant and important legal issues cannot responsibly be made public," Conyers and Nadler wrote in a letter to Mukasey.

They said they are aware of at least 10 legal opinions that appear to cover matters such as the power of Congress to regulate the conduct of military commissions; the military's ability to detain U.S. citizens; rules applying to the boarding and searching of foreign ships; the president's authority to render U.S. detainees to the custody of foreign governments; and the president's authority to breach or suspend U.S. treaty obligations.

Across Capitol Hill, Senate Judiciary Constitution Subcommittee Chairman Russell Feingold, D-Wis., has called a hearing for today to cover similar ground.

"The hearing will explore how this administration has withheld from Congress and the public the basic legal interpretations that govern its conduct, as was evident in the recently declassified memo written by former Justice Department official John Yoo in 2003 justifying the use of torture in interrogations," Feingold's office said in a statement.

Yoo's March 2003 legal opinion concluded, in part, that a U.S. interrogator could argue that he is justified in harming an enemy combatant during an interrogation to protect the nation from attack. The Justice Department rescinded the 81-page memo in December 2003.

John Elwood, deputy assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, will be placed in the hot seat during the hearing as the only witness from the administration.

Justice spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the department would work closely with the lawmakers as they exercise their oversight responsibilities.

In response to the letter from Conyers and Nadler, Roehrkasse said, "When responding to these and other congressional requests, we must consider national security interests and we also must give appropriate weight to the confidentiality of internal executive branch deliberations, including legal advice."

by Chris Strohm and Andrew Noyes

Wed. Apr. 30, 2008

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