The deal does next to nothing to stop the president from reinterpreting the Geneva Conventions. While the White House agreed to a list of “grave breaches” of the conventions that could be prosecuted as war crimes, it stipulated that the president could decide on his own what actions might be a lesser breach of the Geneva Conventions and what interrogation techniques he considered permissible. It’s not clear how much the public will ultimately learn about those decisions. They will be contained in an executive order that is supposed to be made public, but Mr. Hadley reiterated that specific interrogation techniques will remain secret.
The Washington Post agrees (again, e.m.):
The bad news is that Mr. Bush, as he made clear yesterday, intends to continue using the CIA to secretly detain and abuse certain terrorist suspects. He will do so by issuing his own interpretation of the Geneva Conventions in an executive order and by relying on questionable Justice Department opinions that authorize such practices as exposing prisoners to hypothermia and prolonged sleep deprivation. Under the compromise agreed to yesterday, Congress would recognize his authority to take these steps and prevent prisoners from appealing them to U.S. courts. The bill would also immunize CIA personnel from prosecution for all but the most serious abuses and protect those who in the past violated U.S. law against war crimes.
I'd call this a deal with the devil, but look what happened to Hugo Chavez when he made that comparison. Besides, when you strike a deal with the devil, you at least seem to get something. It's hard to see what it is that the President has given up here. Congress makes a worse Faust than Faust.
And why should Congress be making deals with this administration, anyway? These guys have screwed this whole 'war on terror' thing up from the git-go. Bush's actions in the middle east have done nothing to reduce terrorism, in fact sixteen US intelligence agencies agree that the Iraq war has "made the overall terrorism problem worse."
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Tags: news politics war Iraq Bush neocon morons propaganda torture human rights civil rights constitution law republican elections
