Bush Vetoes Anti-Torture Bill

international | anti-war / imperialism | other press Saturday March 08, 2008 18:22 by Seán Ryan

When presented with a Bill from Congress today, a bill that would have outlawed waterboarding amongst other criminal acts, President Bush simply vetoed it.

"Because the danger remains, we need to ensure our intelligence officials have all the tools they need to stop the terrorists," Bush said in his weekly radio address. He added that the vetoed legislation "would diminish these vital tools."

This Bill, had it been passed would have brought the CIA's rights with regard to their treatment of captives into line with the US Army Field Manual which prohibits torture methodologies like waterboarding.

Bush said: "The bill Congress sent me would not simply ban one particular interrogation method, as some have implied. Instead, it would eliminate all the alternative procedures we've developed to question the world's most dangerous and violent terrorists."

Michael Hayden, the Director of the CIA said after the veto that: "There are methods in CIA's program that have been briefed to our oversight committees, are fully consistent with the Geneva Convention and current U.S. law, and are most certainly not torture."

This seems to be a claim that torture like waterboarding etc., is considered legal and proper by the Geneva Conventions (Yes Mr. Hayden - ConventionS).

It also looks like Congress will not be able to overturn this veto as it lacks both the votes and the guts to do so.