[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 3]
[House]
[Page 3654]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




            PRESIDENT VETOES INTELLIGENCE AUTHORIZATION BILL

  (Mr. MORAN of Virginia asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. MORAN of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I would like to say a word about 
the President's veto of the congressional ban on torture. By vetoing 
this measure, he is essentially instructing America's torturers to act 
in a way that is illegal according to international law, to act in a 
way that is wholly inconsistent with the military's code of conduct who 
are required to abide by the Army Field Manual, to act in a way that 
does not consistently provide reliable information because people being 
tortured tell their torturer what they know they want to hear so as to 
stop the torture. They know it is not the most effective means of 
acquiring information.
  He also must know that this puts our own soldiers and civilians in 
much greater jeopardy because our enemy will consider it license to do 
at least as much as we do to them. But, most importantly, it undermines 
our moral authority. How far we have strayed from the vision of our 
Founding Fathers that this Nation would serve as a moral guidepost to 
the rest of the world. We should override this misguided Presidential 
veto because it is both illegal and, most importantly, it is immoral 
and un-American.

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