WASHINGTON (AP) – President Bush said Saturday he vetoed legislation that would ban the CIA from using harsh interrogation methods such as waterboarding to break suspected terrorists because it would end practices that have prevented attacks.
“The bill Congress sent me would take away one of the most valuable tools in the war on terror,” Bush said in his weekly radio address taped for broadcast Saturday. “So today I vetoed it,” Bush said. The bill he rejected provides guidelines for intelligence activities for the year and has the interrogation requirement as one provision. It cleared the House in December and the Senate last month.
“This is no time for Congress to abandon practices that have a proven track record of keeping America safe,” the president said.
The President also defended the way terror suspects are being interrogated. CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric sat down with the President for an exclusive interview at the White House, and she asked him about this transfer to Guantanamo.
“The reason why we’re moving them there is we want them to go through a military tribunal. We want them to receive the justice that they denied other people,” Mr. Bush said. **“But the other thing is that we have to have the capacity to interrogate — not torture, but interrogate people to learn information.” **
Nice. So America doesn’t torture high-value prisoners, but, then the President vetoes a bill that would prevent waterboarding which is by any definition torture.
I was just reading about that. It’s very disgraceful. I mean what else can you say? Bush is the worst president in U.S. history so does this really surprise anyone? I think he could go live on TV and eat a baby and actually get away with it. It really is pathetic what’s happened down here in the last 7 years because of one terrorist attack.
Bush is such an asshole and 90% of the world will agree to this, but it leaves a big question mark on the assholes who voted him back in after his first four years of fuck ups. I come on the guy could not even make it with a baseball team, can he catch a ball can he say glove?
Actually, the baseball team was the only company he had that made any money. Apparently he had someone else do the financial and he just did the schmoozing.
[quote=“Justin Case”]
Bush is such an asshole and 90% of the world will agree to this, but it leaves a big question mark on the assholes who voted him back in after his first four years of fuck ups. [/quote]
No argument from me. Agreed. Bush is the worst President in living memory. Bush was re-elected in part because the GOP election machine is very skillful in gutting an opponent’s campaign. The swift boat ads derailed Kerry’s election bid.
I hope the democratic nominee is prepared for a really dirty campaign. McCain will not be easy to defeat. McCain has a few things working against him. The war in Iraq is very unpopular and the American economy is going down the tubes. This may help the Democrats in November.
Interesting times ahead.
The whole torture thing is just a big ass-covering operation now. If they ban it, it’s admitting they were wrong. They’ve built up their world with Bush (well, the people behind him) as being the providers of Truth.
They’ve said that torture works, and that waterboarding has saved American lives and prevented another terrorist attack.
I say that Tom Cruise works, and has saved American lives and prevented another terrorist attack.
Neither is disprovable. Is that a word?
Of course, the CIA and any intel expert will tell you that torture will rarely give you any useful information. Just the opposite.
It’s the same thing with the eavesdropping legislature they keep trying to re-pass, just to give the telecom industry immunity. If they’re not doing anything wrong, why do they need immunity? If Bush isn’t allowing the CIA to use torture methods, why can’t he ban it? The goverment is just a circus now and has lost pretty much all credibility in the world.
