Interrogation of Detainees

INTERROGATION OF DETAINEES -- (Senate - September 18, 2006)

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, something happened last Thursday in the Senate Armed Services Committee that many of us tried to stop, but we were unsuccessful. The weekend is over now. All we have heard from the liberal media and from the Democrats is: Republican rebellion, Republican rebellion, Republican rebellion--it has kind of a ring to it--a rebellion against President Bush.

Well, nothing could be further from the truth. It is not a Republican rebellion against the President. It is a Democratic denial to the President of that which he begged Congress for, and that was the ability to interrogate terrorists in order to save American lives, to use whatever methods available within the guidelines of the U.S. Supreme Court to get this stuff done.

I was at the White House when he made his presentation. I was sitting closer to him than I am to the Chair right now. I have never seen him with such an earnest plea in his heart pouring out because he wanted to have that ability to save American lives.

What passed the committee Thursday was the Democrats' program of leniency for the enemy, to be sure our interrogators don't get too aggressive with the terrorists, and also to tell the enemy what methods we will use so they can write their own manual.

Republican rebellion? Not hardly. It was the Democratic bill, and they got four Republicans to go along with it. But 100 percent of the Democrats voted for it. Nine of us Republicans on the committee spoke and voted against it--all Republicans. Clearly, this was a Democratic bill to undermine President Bush's plea to get the tools necessary to extract information from terrorists.

The High Value Terrorist Detainee Program, for all practical purposes, will stop, and I don't blame them. What rational interrogator would take a chance of going to prison, or even being executed himself, by trying to comply with the vague provisions of the Democratic bill passed out of the committee Thursday?

President Bush's bill would clearly define our Common article 3 obligations. No one is advocating torture. Torture is already illegal. The President never did that. Nobody wants to use cruel, unusual, inhumane, or degrading treatment that is against the law. It is already illegal. Nobody is advocating inhumane treatment that violates the U.S. Constitution. What the President wants is clarification under our Common article 3 obligations. The President's bill defines these obligations by equating the definition to last year's detainee treatment. The Democratic bill stays silent on this important topic. Their bill also makes it impossible in some cases to use classified information against the accused. Imagine that. We cannot use classified information against the accused when the terrorists are under our control.

It doesn't go far enough to protect our interrogators who may be accused of violating the vague definitions of article 3, especially as they pertain to degrading treatment. How do you define cruel, unusual, inhumane, or degrading treatment? Should we leave the definition up to the interpretation of the courts? Do you want to be an interrogator who is told not to worry, you will not be prosecuted even though what you are doing might be against the law? I don't. We owe it to them to clearly define the law by using the Detainee Treatment Act as the definition.

As the President said last week:

The bottom line is ..... the CIA program won't go forward if there are vague standards applied like those in Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention.

Not having this program will put Americans at risk by leaving us unable to gather the vital intelligence needed to fight this enemy.

And where is the outrage of the American people? Do they have to ``drag their naked bodies through the streets of Mogadishu'' before there is a wake-up call?

I can't blame the American people. All they have heard all weekend is ``Republican rebellion,'' and the Senate Democrats are celebrating. So they should. They won, we lost. They successfully picked off four Republicans and passed their ``soft on terrorists'' legislation. But the plump lady hasn't sung yet. We can still reject this on the floor this week and pass the President's bill. But to do this, Senators are going to have to hear from the folks back home--the folks who believe we need to quit worrying so much about the treatment of terrorists and get to the business of serious interrogation, even if it hurts someone's feelings. Wake up, America; she is about to sing.

Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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