[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 19]
[House]
[Pages 25328-25329]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            IRAQ AND TORTURE

  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to speak out of 
order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentlewoman from California?
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, Yogi Berra once told us that ``When you 
arrive at a fork in the road, you should take it.'' Well, the United 
States has reached a fork in the road when it comes to torturing other 
human beings, and it is time we took it, once and for all.

                              {time}  1345

  Senator John McCain has offered an amendment to the Defense 
appropriations bill clarifying that the United States Government, 
including the military and the CIA, does not condone the use of 
torture, putting the United States in a position to set an example for 
the rest of the world by clearly affirming our opposition to the use of 
torture as a military tactic.
  Yet if the Bush administration has its way, Congress will reject this 
amendment, reserving its right to employ the use of torture in certain 
situations. That is right: The Bush administration has come out against 
an amendment that states for the record that the United States opposes 
the use of torture. Do they really want people to think we support 
torture?
  For one thing, America's use of torture certainly has not helped us 
win any friends so far. It did not win us friends when it was revealed 
that the American military had abused prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. It 
did not win us any friends when thousands of photographs were released 
showing U.S. servicemembers torturing, beating, humiliating, and 
generally violating Iraqi prisoners of war. And it certainly did not 
win us any friends last week when it was revealed that the United 
States might possess dozens of top-secret military prisons in Eastern 
Europe for the sole purpose of viciously interrogating enemy prisoners. 
Never mind the fact that torture as a tactic does not provide accurate 
results. Individuals who are placed in unbearable situations will say 
just about anything to end the pain that they are suffering. Yet, even 
if torture produced positive results, it violates every single 
principle that our country stands for.
  I am not the only one that understands this. Most Members of Congress 
on both sides of the aisle are opposed to torture. This weekend, 
Senator Chuck Hagel, who is no stranger to conservative politics, did 
not pull any punches when he said, ``I think the administration is 
making a terrible mistake in opposing John McCain's amendment on 
detainees and torture.'' He said, ``making a terrible mistake.''
  Yet, the President responds with the same tired talking points. 
Yesterday, he tried to justify his opposition to the McCain amendment 
by saying, our President, ``We will aggressively pursue the enemy, but 
we will do so under the law.'' Then he went on to say, ``We do not 
torture.''
  Mr. Speaker, does the President think he can paper over this problem 
and expect it to go away? If the President is so adamant that the 
United States does not torture, why does he continue to oppose the 
McCain amendment banning the use of torture? Unfortunately, this is 
just business as usual for an administration that has time and again 
taken the wrong path when arriving at a fork in the road.
  Let us not forget that there were plenty of other options for the 
United States before the President made the decision to go to war in 
Iraq, a war that has subsequently cost the lives of nearly 2,100 
American soldiers, uncounted tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi 
civilians, and caused grave injuries to another 15,000 American 
soldiers.
  Now, the President and his administration have yet another choice. 
They ought to take the high road when it comes to permanently ending 
the use

[[Page 25329]]

of torture, and they ought to take the high road in bringing our troops 
home from Iraq and returning Iraq to the Iraqi people.
  The Bush administration can never take back the many mistakes that 
have been made over the past several years: A failed war in Iraq, 
heinous acts of torture around the world, and a shamefully cynical 
foreign policy that has put Americans at greater risk than ever before.
  But we are at another crossroads, and it is not too late to take the 
right path. If we do not, we risk suffering another Yogi Berra 
prophecy: ``Deja vu all over again.''

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