[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 148 (Wednesday, November 9, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2315-E2316]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            ABUSE OF PRESIDENTIAL POWER: THE WAR ON TORTURE

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, November 9, 2005

  Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to raise my voice against the 
use of torture by the United States of America against any human being 
for any reason. I believe torture in any for, including cruel and 
inhuman and degrading interrogation of human beings in the custody of 
the United States of America violates everything we stand for as 
Americans.
  The Senate recently passed the McCain amendment to a military 
appropriation bill by a vote of 90 to 9. The McCain amendment is very 
telling in terms of whether the United States has been battling 
terrorisms or fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in lawful ways. 
The McCain amendment bans ``cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or 
punishment of persons under the custody or control of the United States 
Government.'' This amendment has passed the Senate twice; the first 
vote was 90 to 9. The second time it passed was after the disclosure of 
the secret CIA prisons. Senator McCain made a strong anti-torture 
speech. He said the CIA should not be running prisons. The second time 
the McCain amendment passed the Senate it did so by a voice vote.
  I support the McCain amendment and will vote for it when it reaches 
the House of Representatives for a vote.
  I find it unbelievable that the President in a speech today, November 
8, 2005, in Panama City, Panama stated: ``We do not torture.'' The 
evidence of torture in Abu Ghraib and the prison at Guantanamo Bay in 
Cuba has been documented by the International Committee of the Red 
Cross, Amnesty International, eyewitness testimony of American Military 
officers and photographs and tapes, some of which the Department of 
Defense is still attempting to keep from the public.
  This should not be shocking to me, but still it shocks. The 
statements of President Bush are a natural outgrowth of the unnatural 
power he was given by his lawyers and Justice department lawyers 
because of their willingness to overlook or disregard the United 
States Constitution on the grounds that this war and this enemy was 
``special.'' Congress was lied to, about the reasons for the war; but 
Congress gave away its Constitutional Power under Article 1, Section 8 
when it authorized the President to declare war, a power reserved 
solely to the Congress by the Constitution.

  Less well known and just as ignored is that Article 1, Section 8 of 
the Constitution, gives Congress and only Congress the decision of how 
to treat prisoners.
  Just as the President declared a pre-emptive war on a country not 
involved in the attacks of 9/11, this President and Vice President 
decided how prisoners, even those ``suspected'' of being terrorists, 
were to be treated. This President has abused his power, ignored the 
Constitution and misled the American people.
  The policies on treatment of prisoners which have included torture 
and interrogation techniques that are ``cruel, inhuman, and degrading'' 
were born with the Bush Administration. President Bush asked his 
Justice Department, then run by John Ashcroft and a man of ideas named 
John Woo; his trusted Counsel, Alberto Gonzales who gave him the 
answers he liked when President Bush was Governor of Texas. President 
Bush asked these lawyers for guidance on whether the United States had 
to afford protections of the Geneva Accords to Taliban and al Qaeda 
prisoners. He also asked his civilian advisor in the Pentagon, 
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, how far American military and intelligence 
personnel could go in questioning these prisoners. The answer from 
these civilians, people who had never served in the military, was the 
prisoners did not need to be afforded any of the protections of the 
Geneva Conventions. John Woo, who worked directly for John Ashcroft 
took the position that the President could do anything he wanted. This 
was a very popular position and the one Alberto Gonzales passed on to 
the President.
  Within the Bush administration, the advisor who knew the most about 
the Military, Colin Powell was against these policies. President Bush 
decided the military advice was not what he wanted to hear or follow. 
The professional military people who disagreed with the ``war 
president'' found themselves silenced or ``retired.''
  On November 7, 2005, the Washington Post reported ``Over the past 
year, Vice President Cheney has waged an intense and largely 
unpublicized campaign to stop Congress, the Pentagon and the State 
Department from imposing more restrictive rules on handling terrorist 
suspects.'' Before the news of Vice President's secret CIA prison 
system was disclosed by the Washington Post, Mr. Cheney had offered a 
``deal'' to Senator McCain. He would stop opposing the McCain amendment 
the amendment did not include the CIA from torturing non-Americans. 
Senator McCain turned the Vice President down. In light of what we now 
know about America's secret CIA prisons and Vice President Cheney's 
insistence that the CIA should be exempt from any ban on torture, I am 
very concerned about what has happened and is still happening to 
prisoners in the custody of the CIA.
  I doubt whether anyone who has experienced war would have to be 
convinced to support an anti-war amendment proposed by my noble friend 
John McCain, a veteran subjected to torture for more than five years in 
a North Vietnamese prison. So I take issue with Vice President Cheney, 
a man who received five deferments during the Vietnam War, who has 
lobbied fiercely and shamelessly against the McCain amendment.

  I take issue with President Bush that because we have an enemy he 
thinks ``lurks and plots and plans and want to hurt America again,'' we 
can disregard the concerns of the human rights organizations, the 
European Union and the millions of Muslims who view Americans through 
the lens of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and the Hooded Man attached to 
electric wires.
  The practices approved by the President, the Vice President, Porter 
Goss and whomever knew in the Senate and the House; anyone complicit in 
the torture of prisoners in the custody of the United States has shamed 
us all. Richard Cohen got it right when he said in an opinion piece in 
the Washington Post today entitled ``Torture, Shaming Us All.'' We in 
the United States not only have our torture and humiliating 
interrogation practices on the internet, but we have had to reassert 
200 years of U.S. principles. The real shame is that the President of 
the United States has threatened to use his veto for the first time if 
the McCain amendment comes to his desk as part of a bill.
  There are compelling reasons to support the McCain amendment. The 
first is that torture results in bad intelligence; second it endangers 
our troops; and third; it is causing us to lose the war of ideas. 
According to President Bush and his supporters in Congress, this war in 
Iraq is about bringing democracy and freedom to Iraq. Muslims around 
the world see handcuffed naked men at Abu Ghraib and the orange jump 
suit hooded men of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba when they see the United 
States. This abuse of Muslims is what they see of ``democracy'' 
American style.
  The people throughout the world know that prisoners in the custody of 
the United States have been tortured even if President Bush denies it. 
As Richard Cohen points out, many countries torture prisoners but none 
admit to the practice. The United States has never had to consider a 
ban on torture before because this country has never tortured prisoners 
as a matter of policy. The Uniform Code of Military Justice is clear 
about how prisoners in the

[[Page E2316]]

custody of the United States should be treated. This country has signed 
the Geneva Conventions and in 1994 ratified the Convention Against 
Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, 
which prohibits such treatment under all circumstances including ``a 
state of war.'' According to David Cole, the legal affairs 
correspondent of The Nation, the Bush Administration argued that the 
ban does not apply to foreign national being held and interrogated 
abroad. According to Mr. Cole, this interpretation runs against the 
central purpose of the Torture Convention, which is to protect all 
human beings, regardless of location and nationality.
  Because of the Bush Administration and its abuse of power, we must, 
for the first time in our history, ban torture. And for the first time 
in our history, we have a President who is threatening to veto the ban 
and further shame us all.

                          ____________________