[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 33 (Thursday, March 17, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3007-S3010]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. LEAHY (for himself, Mr. Durbin, Mr. Kennedy, and Mr. 
        Dodd):
  S. 654. A bill to prohibit the expulsion, return, or extradition of 
persons by the United States to countries engaging in torture, and for 
other purposes; to the Committee on Foreign Relations.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, our Nation has a proud history as the 
leading advocate of human rights around the world. Throughout this 
history, we have committed ourselves to numerous international human 
rights treaties, including the Convention Against Torture and Other 
Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The bill that I 
introduce today will reaffirm our obligations under this Convention and 
reassure the world that we are a nation committed to the rule of law. I 
want to thank my cosponsors, Senators Durbin, Kennedy, and Dodd, for 
working with me on this legislation, and for their leadership on these 
issues.
  It has been nearly a year since the first horrific images from Abu 
Ghraib prison appeared in the media, shocking the world and shattering 
the image of the United States. As the Administration circled the 
wagons and claimed the abuses were committed by a ``few bad apples,'' 
new details about the widespread abuse of detainees continued to 
emerge. I have spoken many times about the need for a comprehensive, 
independent investigation into the abuse of detainees. I have no doubt 
that such an investigation would be painful, but it is also a necessary 
step to moving forward.
  Prisoner abuse by U.S. personnel is deeply troubling, but it is only 
one aspect of a broader and serious problem. While we must ensure that 
prisoners are treated humanely by our own personnel, we must also 
prohibit the use of so-called ``extraordinary renditions'' to send 
people to other countries where they will be subject to torture. 
Article 3 of the Convention Against Torture states that ``no State 
Party shall expel, return or extradite a person to another State where 
there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger 
of being subjected to torture.'' The bill I introduce today, the 
``Convention Against Torture Implementation Act,'' will ensure that we 
honor this commitment.
  We have addressed this issue before. Congress implemented Article 3 
of the Convention Against Torture in the Foreign Affairs Reform and 
Restructuring Act of 1998, but this Administration has exploited 
loopholes in that law to transfer detainees to countries where they are 
subjected to torture. Attorney General Gonzales recently said that U.S. 
policy is not to send detainees ``to countries where we believe or we 
know that they're going to be tortured,'' but he acknowledged that we 
``can't fully control'' what other nations do, and added that he does 
not know whether countries have always complied with their promises. In 
fact, they have not.
  My proposed legislation does not broaden the obligations that we 
agreed to by ratifying the Convention Against Torture; it simply closes 
the loopholes in the 1998 law and ensures that we honor our commitment 
not to outsource torture to other countries.
  The case of Maher Arar provides a chilling example of extraordinary 
rendition, and illustrates why this bill is necessary. Mr. Arar, a 
Canadian and Syrian citizen, was stopped by immigration officers at 
John F. Kennedy International Airport in September 2002 as he attempted 
to change planes on his way home to Canada from Tunisia. He claims that 
he was interrogated by an FBI agent and a New York City police officer, 
and that he was denied access to a lawyer. He further claims that he 
repeatedly told U.S. officials that he feared he would be tortured if 
deported to Syria. After being detained for nearly two weeks in a 
Federal detention center in New York, Mr. Arar was transferred by U.S. 
authorities to Syria and held at the Bush administration's request. Mr. 
Arar claims that he was physically tortured during the first two weeks 
of his detention in Syria, and that he was subjected to severe 
psychological abuse over the following 10 months, including being held 
in a grave-like cell and being forced to undergo interrogation while 
hearing the screams of other prisoners.
  According to Administration officials, the CIA received diplomatic 
assurances from Syria that it would not torture Mr. Arar. But those 
assurances amounted to little more than a wink and a nod. Unnamed 
intelligence officials were later quoted in the press, saying that Arar 
confessed under torture in Syria that he had gone to Afghanistan for 
terrorist training. Syria has a well-documented history of state-
sponsored torture. In fact, President Bush stated on November 7, 2003, 
that Syria has left ``a legacy of torture, oppression, misery, and 
ruin'' to its people.
  Rather than rely on assurances that a country will not torture an 
individual, we must make our own unbiased determination. We already 
have the necessary information to do so. Each year, as required by law, 
the State Department publishes country reports on human rights 
practices. The most recent report on Syria states that its torture 
methods include ``administering electrical shocks; pulling out 
fingernails; forcing objects into the rectum; beating, sometimes while 
the victim was suspended from the ceiling; hyperextending the spine; 
bending the detainees into the frame of a wheel and whipping exposed 
body parts; and using a backward-bending chair to asphyxiate the victim 
or fracture the victim's spine.''
  Some will argue that the post-9/11 world is different; that we must 
use any and all means available to extract information from suspected 
terrorists. Their argument might be more credible if every person who 
turned up on a terrorist watch list were, in fact, a terrorist. I 
cannot say whether Mr. Arar had ties to terrorist groups or not, but we 
do know that he was never charged with a crime. After enduring months 
of torture at the hands of the Syrians, he was released and sent back 
to Canada.
  Nor was Mr. Arar's experience an isolated incident. A recent article 
in The New Yorker titled ``Outsourcing Torture'' provides disturbing 
details about how the administration embraced the use of rendition 
after the 9/11 attacks. Several press reports detail the CIA's use of 
its own Gulfstream V and Boeing 737 jets to secretly transfer detainees 
to countries around the world, where it is likely that they will be 
tortured.
  The Convention Against Torture Implementation Act addresses the 
extraordinary rendition problem in a straightforward manner. It 
requires the State Department to produce annually a list of countries 
where torture is known to occur. The list would be based on information 
contained in the State Department's country reports on human rights 
practices. The bill prohibits the transfer of individuals to any 
country on this list or to any other country if there are substantial 
grounds for believing that the person would be tortured. It also 
provides reasonable exceptions to this prohibition to allow for legal 
extraditions and removals.
  Most importantly, the bill closes the diplomatic assurances loophole. 
We would no longer accept assurances from governments that we know 
engage in torture. Our past reliance on diplomatic assurances is 
blatantly hypocritical. How can our State Department denounce countries 
for engaging in torture while the CIA secretly transfers detainees to 
the very same countries for interrogation? The President says he does 
not condone torture, but transferring detainees to other countries 
where they will be tortured does not absolve our government of 
responsibility. By outsourcing torture to these countries, we diminish 
our own values as a nation and lose our credibility as an advocate of 
human rights around the world.
  Last June, in the aftermath of the Abu Ghraib scandal, the President 
was asked if he had authorized abusive interrogation techniques. He 
replied,

[[Page S3008]]

``The authorization I issued was that anything we did would conform to 
U.S. law and would be consistent with international treaty 
obligations.'' The legislation I introduce today will help us fulfill 
the President's promise.
  The Senate gave its advice and consent to the ratification of the 
Convention Against Torture more than a decade ago. It is time to honor 
our commitment and show the world that we will hold ourselves to the 
same standards that we demand of others.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill and 
a section-by-section analysis be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                 S. 654

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Convention Against Torture 
     Implementation Act of 2005''.

     SEC. 2. PROHIBITION ON CERTAIN TRANSFERS OF PERSONS.

       (a) Prohibition.--No person in the custody or control of a 
     department, agency, or official of the United States 
     Government, or of any contractor of any such department or 
     agency, shall be expelled, returned, or extradited to another 
     country, whether directly or indirectly, if--
       (1) the country is included on the most recent list 
     submitted to Congress by the Secretary of State under section 
     3; or
       (2) there are otherwise substantial grounds for believing 
     that the person would be in danger of being subjected to 
     torture.
       (b) Exceptions.--
       (1) Waivers.--
       (A) Authority.--The Secretary of State may waive the 
     prohibition in subsection (a)(1) with respect to a country if 
     the Secretary certifies to the appropriate congressional 
     committees that--
       (i) the acts of torture that were the basis for including 
     that country on the list have ended; and
       (ii) there is in place a mechanism that assures the 
     Secretary in a verifiable manner that a person expelled, 
     returned, or extradited to that country will not be tortured 
     in that country, including, at a minimum, immediate, 
     unfettered, and continuing access, from the point of return, 
     to such person by an independent humanitarian organization.
       (B) Reports on waivers.--
       (i) Reports required.--For each person expelled, returned, 
     or extradited under a waiver provided under subparagraph (A), 
     the head of the appropriate government agency making such 
     transfer shall submit to the appropriate congressional 
     committees a report that includes the name and nationality of 
     the person transferred, the date of transfer, the reason for 
     such transfer, and the name of the receiving country.
       (ii) Form.--Each report under this subparagraph shall be 
     submitted, to the extent practicable, in unclassified form, 
     but may include a classified annex as necessary to protect 
     the national security of the United States.
       (2) Extradition or removal.--The prohibition in subsection 
     (a)(1) may not be construed to apply to the legal extradition 
     of a person under a bilateral or multilateral extradition 
     treaty or to the legal removal of a person under the 
     immigration laws of the United States if, before such 
     extradition or removal, the person has recourse to a United 
     States court of competent jurisdiction to challenge such 
     extradition or removal on the basis that there are 
     substantial grounds for believing that the person would be in 
     danger of being subjected to torture in the receiving 
     country.
       (c) Assurances Insufficient.--Written or verbal assurances 
     made to the United States by the government of a country that 
     persons in its custody or control will not be tortured are 
     not sufficient for believing that a person is not in danger 
     of being subjected to torture for purposes of subsections 
     (a)(2) and (b)(2), or for meeting the requirement of 
     subsection (b)(1)(A)(ii).

     SEC. 3. REPORTS ON COUNTRIES USING TORTURE.

       Not later than 30 days after the effective date of this 
     Act, and annually thereafter, the Secretary of State shall 
     submit to the appropriate congressional committees a report 
     listing each country where torture is known to be used. The 
     list shall be compiled on the basis of the information 
     contained in the most recent annual report of the Secretary 
     of State submitted to the Speaker of the House of 
     Representatives and the Committee on Foreign Relations of the 
     Senate under section 116(d) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 
     1961 (22 U.S.C. 2151n(d)).

     SEC. 4. REGULATIONS.

       (a) Interim Regulations.--Not later than 60 days after the 
     effective date of this Act, the heads of the appropriate 
     government agencies shall prescribe interim regulations for 
     the purpose of carrying out this Act and implementing the 
     obligations of the United States under Article 3 of the 
     Convention Against Torture, subject to any reservations, 
     understandings, declarations, and provisos contained in the 
     Senate resolution advising and consenting to the ratification 
     of the Convention Against Torture, and consistent with the 
     provisions of this Act.
       (b) Final Regulations.--Not later than 180 days after 
     interim regulations are prescribed under subsection (a), and 
     following a period of notice and opportunity for public 
     comment, the heads of the appropriate government agencies 
     shall prescribe final regulations for the purposes described 
     in subsection (a).

     SEC. 5. SAVINGS CLAUSE.

       Nothing in this Act shall be construed to eliminate, limit, 
     or constrain in any way the obligations of the United States 
     or the rights of any individual under the Convention Against 
     Torture or any other applicable law.

     SEC. 6. REPEAL OF SUPERSEDED AUTHORITY.

       Section 2242 of the Foreign Affairs Reform and 
     Restructuring Act of 1998 (Public Law 105-277; 8 U.S.C. 1231 
     note) is repealed. Regulations promulgated under such section 
     that are in effect on the date this Act becomes effective 
     shall remain in effect until the heads of the appropriate 
     government agencies issue interim regulations under section 
     4(a).

     SEC. 7. DEFINITIONS.

       (a) Defined Terms.--In this Act:
       (1) Appropriate government agencies.--The term 
     ``appropriate government agencies'' means--
       (A) the intelligence community (as defined in section 3(4) 
     of the National Security Act of 1947 (50 U.S.C. 401a(4))); 
     and
       (B) elements of the Department of State, the Department of 
     Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department 
     of Justice, the United States Secret Service, the United 
     States Marshals Service, and any other Federal law 
     enforcement, national security, intelligence, or homeland 
     security agency that takes or assumes custody or control of 
     persons or transports persons in its custody or control 
     outside the United States, other than those elements listed 
     or designated as elements of the intelligence community under 
     section 3(4) of the National Security Act of 1947 (50 U.S.C. 
     401a(4))).
       (2) Appropriate congressional committees.--The term 
     ``appropriate congressional committees'' means--
       (A) the Committees on Armed Services, Homeland Security and 
     Government Affairs, Judiciary, Foreign Relations, and the 
     Select Committee on Intelligence of the Senate; and
       (B) the Committees on Armed Services, Homeland Security, 
     Judiciary, International Relations, and the Permanent Select 
     Committee on Intelligence of the House of Representatives.
       (3) Convention against torture.--The term ``Convention 
     Against Torture'' means the United Nations Convention Against 
     Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or 
     Punishment, done at New York on December 10, 1984, entered 
     into force on June 26, 1987, signed by the United States on 
     April 18, 1988, and ratified by the United States on October 
     21, 1994 (T. Doc. 100-20).
       (4) Expelled person.--A person who is expelled is a person 
     who is involuntarily transferred from the territory of any 
     country, or a port of entry thereto, to the territory of 
     another country, or a port of entry thereto.
       (5) Extradited person.--A person who is extradited is an 
     accused person who, in accordance with chapter 209 of title 
     18, United States Code, is surrendered or delivered to 
     another country with jurisdiction to try and punish the 
     person.
       (6) Returned person.--A person who is returned is a person 
     who is transferred from the territory of any country, or a 
     port of entry thereto, to the territory of another country of 
     which the person is a national or where the person has 
     previously resided, or a port of entry thereto.
       (b) Same Terms as in the Convention Against Torture.--
     Except as otherwise provided, the terms used in this Act have 
     the meanings given those terms in the Convention Against 
     Torture, subject to any reservations, understandings, 
     declarations, and provisos contained in the Senate resolution 
     advising and consenting to the ratification of the Convention 
     Against Torture.

     SEC. 8. EFFECTIVE DATE.

       This Act shall take effect on the date that is 30 days 
     after the date of the enactment of this Act.

     SEC. 9. CLASSIFICATION IN UNITED STATES CODE.

       This Act shall be classified to the United States Code as a 
     new chapter of title 50, United States Code.

   Convention Against Torture Implementation Act of 2005 Section-by-
                            Section Analysis

       Sec. 1. Short Title. The Convention Against Torture 
     Implementation Act of 2005.
       Sec. 2. Prohibition on Certain Transfers of Persons. This 
     section implements Article 3 of the Convention Against 
     Torture, which prohibits expelling, returning, or extraditing 
     persons to countries where they are in danger of being 
     subjected to torture. Subsection (a) prohibits the transfer 
     of a person in the custody or control of the United States 
     government to a country included on a list generated by the 
     State Department, as required by Section 3 of this Act, or to 
     countries where there are substantial grounds for believing 
     that the person would be in danger of being subjected to 
     torture. Subsection (b) allows exceptions to the prohibition 
     if the Secretary of State waives the prohibition or if the 
     transfer is done under an extradition treaty or as a legal 
     removal under United States immigration laws. Agencies that

[[Page S3009]]

     transfer a detainee under the waiver exception must submit a 
     report of the transfer to appropriate congressional 
     committees. Subsection (c) states that assurances made to the 
     United States by another government that persons in its 
     custody will not be tortured are not sufficient for the 
     United States to conclude that a person will not be subjected 
     to torture.
       Sec. 3. Reports on Countries Using Torture. This section 
     requires the Secretary of State, on an annual basis, to 
     compile a list of countries where torture is known to be 
     used. The United States is prohibited from transferring 
     persons to the countries on this list, except in accordance 
     with the exceptions contained in section 2. The list shall be 
     compiled based on information contained in the most recent 
     State Department country reports on human rights practices, 
     which the Department submits annually in accordance with 
     section 116(d) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (22 
     U.S.C. 2151n(d)).
       Sec. 4. Regulations. This section requires appropriate 
     government agencies (as defined in section 7) to prescribe 
     regulations in accordance with this Act. Interim regulations 
     must be prescribed within 60 days of the effective date of 
     the Act. Final regulations must be prescribed, through notice 
     and comment rulemaking, not more than 180 days thereafter.
       Sec. 5. Savings Clause. This section ensures that the Act 
     does not eliminate, limit, or constrain the obligations of 
     the United States or the rights of any individual under the 
     Convention Against Torture or any other applicable law.
       Sec. 6. Repeal of Superseded Authority. This section 
     repeals section 2242 of the Foreign Affairs Reform and 
     Restructuring Act of 1998 (Public Law 105-277; 8 U.S.C. 1231 
     note). This law also implemented Article 3 of the Convention 
     Against Torture, but lacked specific guidance for agencies 
     and allowed the United States to rely on diplomatic 
     assurances that a government would not torture a person 
     transferred to its custody. This section also requires agency 
     regulations promulgated under section 2242 to remain in 
     effect until the appropriate government agencies issue new 
     regulations in accordance with section 4 of this Act.
       Sec. 7. Definitions. This section defines ``Appropriate 
     Government Agencies,'' ``Appropriate Congressional 
     Committees,'' ``Expelled Person,'' ``Extradited Person,'' 
     ``Returned Person,'' and ``Convention Against Torture.'' It 
     also states that terms used in the Act, unless otherwise 
     provided, have the meanings given to those terms in the 
     Convention Against Torture.
       Sec. 8. Effective Date. Makes the Act effective 30 days 
     after its enactment.
       Sec. 9. Classification in United States Code. This section 
     requires the Act to be classified as a new chapter of title 
     50 in the United States Code. The superseded authority was 
     classified as a note in title 8 in the United States Code. 
     Given the scope and applicability of the Act, it is more 
     accurate to classify it in the War and National Defense title 
     than in the Aliens and Nationality title.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, the entire world continues to wait for 
signs that the administration takes seriously its moral and legal 
responsibilities to eliminate torture and abuse. It is long past time 
for the administration to give the American people and the world an 
ironclad assurance that these shameful tactics are no longer being used 
in any prison or detention facility under American control and that we 
are not outsourcing our torture to regimes well known for using them.
  I strongly support the legislation that Senator Leahy has introduced 
to deal with this urgent problem and to see that our Nation is not 
farming out abusive interrogations to other countries. The bill makes 
crystal clear that we can't torture by proxy.
  Abhorrence to torture is a fundamental value. Our attitude toward 
torture speaks volumes about our national conscience, our dedication to 
the rule of law, and our essential ideals. 
9/11 is no excuse for abandoning our ideals.
  The line separating right from wrong must clearly exclude the 
reprehensible practice called extraordinary rendition, the ridiculous 
code word for torture by proxy. Article 3 of the Treaty Against 
Torture, which the United States has ratified, provides: ``No State 
Party shall expel, return, or extradite a person to another State where 
there are substantial grounds for believing he would be in danger of 
being subjected to torture.'' The secretive U.S. practice of rendition 
is a violation of international law because it involves detaining 
prisoners without a shred of due process and delivering them for 
interrogation into the hands of countries known to commit torture. As 
one commentator noted: ``In terms of bad behavior, it stands side by 
side with contract killings.''
  Ask Maher Arar. In the fall of 2002, Arar, a Canadian citizen, was 
returning to Montreal from a family visit in Tunisia and he made a 
stopover at Kennedy Airport in New York City. Acting in part on flawed 
intelligence from Canadian officials, U.S. Immigration officials seized 
Mr. Arar at the airport. He was not charged with a crime, or given a 
chance to talk with a lawyer. Instead, he was held in Brooklyn and 
interrogated for days by U.S. law enforcement authorities.
  When the interrogation failed to produce incriminating information, 
Mr. Arar was flown to Jordan and handed over to Jordanian authorities. 
He was chained, blindfolded, and beaten in a van that transported him 
to the Syrian border. In Syria, he was placed in a small, dark cell--
three feet by six feet, like a grave--and was held there for almost a 
year. He was slapped, beaten, and whipped on his palms, wrists, and 
back with an electric cable. He begged them to stop. He heard other 
prisoners screaming as they were tortured. He signed any confessions he 
was told to sign.
  Mr. Arar was released in October 2003. Syrian officials told 
reporters that their investigators found no link between Mr. Arar and 
al-Qaida. His confession turned out to be worthless and his suffering 
was pointless. Mr. Arar is now home in Canada.
  How can any of us stand idly by knowing that this country condoned 
and facilitated such brutality?
  Tragically, Mr. Arar is not the only victim. On March 6, 60 Minutes 
aired a report on rendition. On the program, Michael Scheuer, a 
recently retired CIA official who created its rendition program, 
admitted that he would ``have to assume'' that suspects the U.S. sends 
to Egypt are tortured. ``It's very convenient,'' he said. ``It's 
finding someone else to do your dirty work.''
  The Defense Department has attempted to justify this tactic. On June 
25, 2003, Defense Department General Counsel William Haynes wrote to 
Senator Leahy, stating that whenever the U.S. transfers an individual 
to another country, ``United States policy is to obtain specific 
assurances from the receiving country that it will not torture the 
individual being transferred to that country. We can assure you that 
the United States would take steps to investigate credible allegations 
of torture and take appropriate action if there were reason to believe 
that those assurances were not being honored.''
  Mr. Haynes' ``assurances,'' are difficult to accept. The State 
Department's annual human rights report, released last month, 
criticized numerous countries for a range of interrogation practices it 
labeled as torture. The State Department identified Syria, Egypt, and 
Saudi Arabia, among others, as countries practicing torture. Press 
reports make clear that since 
9/11, the U.S. has flown 100-150 suspects to countries such as these. 
The State Department condemns Syria for torturing its prisoners, but 
Mr. Haynes blindly relies on Syria's promise that the prisoners we send 
there will be treated humanely.
  Recent press reports also suggest that the assurances of humane 
treatment sought by the CIA are worth very little. According to today's 
Washington Post, ``one government official who visited several foreign 
prisons where suspects were rendered by the CIA said 
. . . `It's widely understood that the interrogation practices that 
would be illegal in the U.S. are being used.' '' The official also 
said, ``they say they are not abusing them . . . but we all know they 
do.''
  According to the Post, an Arab diplomat, whose country is actively 
engaged in counterterrorism alongside the CIA said it was unrealistic 
to believe the CIA really wants to follow up on assurances. He said: 
``It would be stupid to keep track of them because then you would know 
what's going on.'' He said, ``it's like don't ask don't tell.''
  So, it seems that we are not fooling anybody but the American public.
  We are a Nation of laws, not hypocrites. Our country is strong and 
our constitutional system has endured because it permits us to do great 
things and still ensure that we treat people fairly and humanely. We 
are not supposed to ``disappear'' people here.
  Yet, that is exactly what rendition and the related tactic of ``ghost 
detainees'' amounts to, making people vanish into a shadowy world of 
secret abuse. In his report on the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, MG. 
Antonio Taguba

[[Page S3010]]

wrote that prisoners had not been registered as required by Army 
regulations and they were being moved around to avoid detection by the 
Red Cross. General Taguba called the practice ``deceptive, contrary to 
Army doctrine, and in
   violation of international law.'' Last September, Army investigators 
told the Senate Armed Services Committee that as many as 100 detainees 
at Abu Ghraib had been hidden from the Red Cross at the CIA's 
direction.

  Last month, the Associated Press reported that one of the ``ghost 
detainees'' held at Abu Ghraib, Manadel al-Jamadi, died in November 
2003 under CIA interrogation. He had been suspended by his wrists, with 
his hands cuffed behind his back. According to an Army guard who was 
asked by the interrogator to adjust al-Jamadi's position, blood gushed 
from his mouth ``as if a faucet had been turned on'' after he was 
released from his shackles.
  Behavior like that forces us all to ask, ``what has America become?''
  The issue shows no signs of abating. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva 
Convention states that transfers of detainees from occupied territory 
to any other country ``are prohibited, regardless of their motive.'' 
Violations of the Article constitute ``grave breaches'' of the Treaty 
and qualify as ``war crimes'' under Federal law. Nevertheless, a 
Justice Department memorandum in March, 2004 re-interpreted the Treaty 
to allow the CIA to remove prisoners from Iraq for the purpose of 
``facilitating interrogation.'' According to press reports, the CIA 
used this ``Goldsmith Memorandum'' as justification to transport ``as 
many as a dozen detainees'' out of Iraq. The legal analysis in the 
memorandum is an embarrassment. Yet it appears to have provided the 
legal justification for the CIA to commit war crimes.
  The New York Times recently reported that the U.S. plans to transfer 
as many as half the 550 detainees held at Guantanamo Bay to prisons in 
other countries. This week, a Federal judge blocked the government from 
transferring 13 citizens of Yemen until a hearing can be held on the 
propriety of the move. Lawyers for the detainees expressed concern that 
the prisoners would be delivered into the hands of torture.
  Even worse, last week Attorney General Gonzales defended the practice 
of rendition, despite admitting that he ``can't fully control'' what 
other nations do and that he doesn't know whether countries have always 
complied with their promises.
  Congress can't allow these shameful tactics to continue. Senator 
Leahy's bill is designed to prevent them. It states that no person in 
the custody or control of the United States can be sent to another 
country on the State Department list of countries that commit torture. 
Nor, may any person be sent to a country, even if it is not on the 
State Department list, where there are grounds to believe the person 
would be in danger of being tortured. The bill states that mere 
diplomatic assurances that detainees will be treated humanely are not 
sufficient to permit a detainee's transfer. Instead, in certain 
circumstances, the act permits delivery of the detainee where there is 
an actual mechanism to verify that the person will not be tortured, 
such as by allowing unfettered access to the detainee by humanitarian 
organizations.
  The Bush administration's has clearly condoned the use of torture and 
abuse by our own government, as well as handing prisoners over to other 
countries for the same purpose. Officials have approved and used 
interrogation techniques that include feigning suffocation, feigning 
drowning, ``stress positions,'' sleep deprivation, and the use of 
unmuzzled dogs. According to one report, ``The methods employed by the 
CIA are so severe that senior officials of the Federal Bureau of 
Investigation have directed its agents to stay out of many of the 
interviews of the high-level detainees . . . ``because the FBI fears 
that the techniques could subject their agents to criminal lawsuits.
  The anti-rendition bill offered today is a way to start addressing 
the problem. It deserves to pass as soon as possible. Torture and other 
abuses of prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo have done 
immense damage to America's standing in the world and has clearly made 
the war on terrorism harder to win. We need to repair that damage and 
re-claim our national commitment to fairness and decency.
  As Edmund Burke said, ``The only thing necessary for the triumph of 
evil is for good men to do nothing.'' We in Congress have it in our 
power to prevent the triumph of an evil practice. Knowing what we now 
know, the Senate cannot simply look away and do nothing. I urge my 
colleagues to support us in ending these despicable abuses.
                                 ______