[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 58 (Tuesday, April 21, 2009)]
[House]
[Page H4556]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     DETAINEES IN THE WAR ON TERROR

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, something happened last week that 
really bothered me a great deal. President Obama decided to release CIA 
documents that were top secret because they said that they showed that 
there may have been some violations of law regarding torture when we 
were getting information from terrorists. So I would like to talk a 
little bit about the whole story or as much of it as I could find.
  On March 18, the Justice Department told CIA Director Leon Panetta 
that they were going to recommend to the White House that these memos 
be released almost completely uncensored. Now, bear in mind these are 
top secret documents, and when they are top secret like that and 
labeled that way, that means that there is a security threat, not only 
to the United States, but to the CIA and the people that did this work 
for the United States to protect us against terrorism.
  Nevertheless, these top secret memos were going to be released. 
Panetta told Attorney General Eric Holder and officials in the White 
House that the administration needed to discuss the possibility that 
the release of the memos might expose CIA officers to lawsuits on 
allegations of torture and abuse.

                              {time}  2015

  Panetta also pushed for more censorship of the memos, officials said. 
The Justice Department also informed other CIA officials, seniors over 
there, of the decision to release the memos, and as a courtesy told 
former agency directors.
  Senior CIA officials objected, arguing that the release would hurt 
the agency's ability to interrogate prisoners in the future. They also 
said the move would further tarnish CIA officers who had acted on the 
Bush officials' legal guidance, and they warned that the action would 
erode foreign intelligence services' trust, other countries' trust in 
the CIA's ability to protect their national secrets, current and former 
officials said.
  Now, I hope my colleagues will bear in mind that these were top 
secret documents, that four former directors of the CIA said it would 
threaten national security, it would eliminate tactics that were used 
in the past to get information from terrorists that probably protected 
American citizens and maybe saved a lot of lives. Even Leon Panetta 
told them that there was a problem. And former Vice President Cheney 
last night said on the Hannity show, which I watch quite frequently, 
that he saw memos that proved that the tactics employed by CIA members 
on terrorists did protect Americans from a terrorist attack.
  Now, if that is the case, and I believe Vice President Cheney when he 
said that, I believe those memos that show that there was a real help 
to the country in protecting us against terrorist attack and probably 
saved a lot of lives, I believe those memos should be released, and I 
hope that President, President Obama will take a hard look at this.
  He looked at these documents and said they should be released, even 
though they were top secret, threatened a lot of CIA members and 
threatened our national security, in my opinion. So since he did that, 
I think the President ought to release the memos that show that the 
tactics used by the CIA did save lives and did protect America from 
attack by terrorists in this country.
  If I were talking to the President tonight, Mr. Speaker, I would say 
that is only fair. If you are going to release the memos and threaten 
the CIA with lawsuits and everything else because of the tactics that 
were employed there, if you are going to threaten possibly former 
Justice Department officials who wrote opinions saying that these 
tactics could be employed to extract information from terrorists, that 
we certainly should see the memos that show that the things that they 
did did protect America and did save lives. I think that is only fair.
  In addition, I would like to end by saying that I don't think those 
who did their best at the CIA or the Justice Department to protect 
America should be prosecuted for doing their job to protect this 
country.

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