CQ TODAY PRINT EDITION
April 23, 2009 – 10:21 p.m.
Torture Debate Crowds Agenda
By Bennett Roth, CQ Staff
Democrats have plunged into a divisive debate over whether Congress should create an outside commission to investigate the George W. Bush administration’s interrogation policies, and some are worried it will impede their party’s ambitious legislative agenda.
The issue finds House Speaker Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif., on one side and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid , D-Nev., on the other.
Pelosi supports the creation of an independent “truth commission,” while Reid has urged caution and wants the Senate Intelligence Committee to proceed with its ongoing classified investigation.
Mixed signals from the White House have only clouded the issue. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Thursday that President Obama had concluded earlier this month that an outside commission is likely only to yield political rancor. This came after Obama said April 21, in response to a question, that an independent panel was better than a congressional probe.
Some Democrats are worried that with their platter full of hot issues such as health care, the budget and energy, a prolonged and politically charged investigation of Bush-era decisions could alienate voters concerned about economic security.
Such a probe would further inflame partisan divisions, with Republicans already accusing Democrats of belatedly questioning counterterrorism techniques about which Pelosi and other top Democratic leaders were long aware.
‘Fraught With Dangers’
Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, who often charts a centrist course, said lawmakers have to be careful how they proceed down this path.
“It is fraught with dangers,” Nelson said. “One of the dangers is we will be distracted. We will be going after issues of that kind and not be able to fill our other obligations. You have to counterbalance that with the public’s right to know what’s happened, and people cannot simply violate the law.”
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The controversy landed anew on Congress’ doorstep after Obama released on April 16 internal Bush-era Justice Department memos justifying and detailing extremely harsh interrogation methods that some have characterized as torture — simulated drowning, face slapping, forced nudity, sleep deprivation and other techniques — used on terrorism suspects in U.S. custody after Sept. 11, 2001.
Initially, Obama said he did not want to prosecute those who used the techniques, saying that he wanted to look forward and that he had already banned the practices, anyway. But pressure built, especially from the liberal flank of his party, and the president soon modified that position, saying Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. should decide whether to investigate former officials in charge of formulating such policies.
A number of left-leaning groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and MoveOn.org, have urged Holder to appoint a special prosecutor. The issue could come up Friday when Holder travels to Capitol Hill to testify about the budget.
Aligned with Pelosi is Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick J. Leahy , D-Vt., who has also called for the creation of the independent commission. Leahy announced in late February that his committee will hold hearings on the call for an independent commission.
House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers Jr. , D-Mich, also agrees. He said the only way to uncover the facts, without political interference, is either to empanel an independent commission or have Holder appoint a special prosecutor. He said his committee has not yet decided which option to endorse.
“If a special prosecutor does it, that takes the politics out of it,” Conyers said. “If it is a truly independent commission, that takes the politics out of it.”
Leahy Rebuffed
Leahy was rebuffed when Reid said Thursday he preferred to await the findings of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is expected to release a report on the Bush-era practices by the end of the year. This would precede any outside commission.
“It would be very unwise, from my perspective, to start having commissions, boards, tribunals until we find out what the facts are,” Reid said. “I don’t know a better way to get what the facts are than through the Intelligence Committee. I think that’s a pretty good way to do it.”
Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein , D-Calif., said that her committee’s probe, which should take six to eight more months to complete, has so far been bipartisan. Reid said there would be a public report, but Feinstein said the inquiry would produce a classified report, declining to say whether it would be made public.
“It will be up to the committee’s discretion whether they would like to issue findings or recommendations,” said Feinstein. “You can be sure this will be discussed, but in a classified setting, as it should be.”
The committee has already examined alleged torture techniques used on two detainees, she said. Asked if she was shocked by some of the findings, Feinstein said, “Shocked, personally, yes.”
Not all House Democrats were eager for an investigation. Alcee L. Hastings , D-Fla., a senior member of the House Intelligence Committee, said he worried that such a probe would “destroy the morale of the intelligence committee.”
Furthermore, Hastings said that such politically charged investigations can be overwhelming, noting that the 1998-99 impeachment of President Bill Clinton “took up the air of everything in this place.”
Republican Rancor
The call for an outside investigation is fueling Republican anger. House Minority Leader John A. Boehner , R-Ohio, said at his weekly press conference Thursday that such a probe would yield nothing new and might even make the country less safe.
“I don’t see what we’re going to learn that congressional leaders didn’t already know,” Boehner said. He said that after the 9/11 attacks, top Republican and Democratic leaders were regularly briefed on the interrogation of terrorism suspects. As far as he knew, no one raised objections.
Later, Boehner said he asked Obama during a bicameral White House meeting on Thursday to declassify and release information detailing the intelligence gathered through the use of the harsh interrogation techniques. Obama said the administration was examining whether to release the information, according to Boehner.
Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said in an op-ed article in The Wall Street Journal on Thursday that it was unnecessary to release the interrogation memos “because members of both parties have been aware of them since the program began in 2002.”
Democratic wrangling over the issue was evidence to one political expert that Obama’s handling of the issue has not been politically adept.
“I think this has to be seen as a misstep,” said Norman Ornstein, a political scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
Ornstein said that lawmakers and the Obama administration appeared in disarray over the issue. The result, he said, is that the issue has trumped topics that voters want to hear about, such as health care, climate change and the economy.
Edward Epstein, Kathleen Hunter, Bart Jansen and Adriel Bettelheim contributed to this story.
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