[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 25 (Thursday, February 25, 2010)]
[House]
[Page H908]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          HANDLING WITH KID GLOVES THE ENEMIES OF THIS NATION

  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, sometimes I just do not 
understand this place. We are fighting people who will cut off your 
head, who will blow up a building and kill 3,000 people with an 
airplane. They will do anything they can to destroy America. Yet, when 
we pass an intelligence bill, we want to do everything we can to treat 
them with kid gloves. It just doesn't make any sense to me. The bill we 
are going to be voting on tomorrow in the manager's amendment says 
this:
  It would define ``cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment'' in 
intelligence interrogations, and it would provide a penalty of up to 15 
years in prison for the use of this treatment during an interrogation.
  They're talking about our CIA people who are interrogating a 
terrorist--an al Qaeda terrorist, a Taliban terrorist or somebody who 
is threatening the security of the United States. I want to read that 
again.
  It would define ``cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment'' in 
intelligence interrogations, and it would provide a penalty of up to 15 
years in prison for the use of this treatment during an interrogation.
  Now, what intelligence agent in his right mind would go that extra 
mile to get information from a terrorist who had information about 
flying a plane into a building to kill a couple of thousand people? 
Because, if he used anything that didn't fit within this category, he 
could be jailed. He could be prosecuted and could go to jail for 15 
years. That's insane.
  Then it goes on to say that it would also provide a criminal penalty 
of up to 5 years in jail for medical professionals who enable such 
activities.
  Look, I don't believe in torture, and I don't believe in mistreating 
human beings, but when you're talking about the security of the United 
States of America, that's number one. That is number one. When we take 
our oath of office here, we swear to uphold and defend the Constitution 
against all enemies, foreign and domestic. If these terrorists are 
enemies of the United States, we need to do whatever we can to make 
sure that we get information from them to protect this country. The 
people who are doing that job frontline are the FBI, the CIA, the DIA, 
and all of our intelligence agencies. To hamstring them makes no sense 
to me whatsoever.
  My liberal colleagues on the other side want to pat them on the head 
and give them Jell-O for lunch and do all the other crazy things that 
you should do. They're living better down at Guantanamo than the people 
in our prisons here in the United States--Americans. Yet we want to 
make sure that we treat them with kid gloves.
  Right now, we have three Navy SEALs who are going to be court-
martialed because they captured an al Qaeda terrorist in Fallujah, in 
Iraq, a terrorist who dragged four American contractors through the 
streets, burned their bodies, tortured them, and hung them from a 
bridge. In addition to that, he cut the head off of Daniel Pearl, a 
newsman, and he put his head on a pike.
  You know, that guy, I'm sure, deserves a little extra sweet 
treatment, but I don't think so. Because he said he was hit in the 
mouth, had a bloody lip and got hit in the stomach, the three Navy 
SEALs who captured him are being court-martialed.
  It makes no sense. This place is going nuts. We ought to be doing 
everything we can to defend and protect this country, and that means 
doing whatever is necessary, with certain limits, to extract any 
information we can from a terrorist. For us to put language in there 
like we're going to give a 15-year penalty in prison for a CIA agent 
who goes a little beyond by using cruel, inhuman, or degrading 
treatment--and, boy, I don't know how you'd define that--what CIA agent 
is going to want to take that risk?
  I just don't understand it, Mr. Speaker. We are in a war against 
people who want to destroy us and our way of life. They are willing to 
do all kinds of things--fly planes into buildings, do everything else, 
cut off heads, torture people. Yet we want to make sure we treat them 
with kid gloves. It makes absolutely no sense, and I will not vote for 
that bill tomorrow or anything that looks like it.

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