10 June 2004
Senator Charles Schumer
Statement to Attorney General John Ashcroft about torture at a session of the Senate Judiciary Committee, June 8, 2004
Torture was a major topic during Attorney General John Ashcroft’s June 8 appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee. (Click here for a transcript of the entire session.) Some senators on the committee complimented him for everything he’s ever done. Others, like Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, challenged him fiercely on specific issues. A good portion of the session had to do with Ashcroft’s refusal to make public advisory memoranda about President Bush's torture policy. This is what New York Senator Charles Schumer, a Democrat, said to the Attorney General about torture.
Mr. Attorney General, I know this hasn't been an easy day for you. And we respect your being here. But in all due respect, I have to say sometimes you're your own worst enemy.
And I'd like to interject a note of balance here. There are times when we all get in high dudgeon. We ought to be reasonable about this. I think there are probably very few people in this room or in America who would say that torture should never, ever be used, particularly if thousands of lives are at stake.
Take the hypothetical: If we knew that there was a nuclear bomb hidden in an American city and we believed that some kind of torture, fairly severe maybe, would give us a chance of finding that bomb before it went off, my guess is most Americans and most senators, maybe all, would say, "Do what you have to do."
So it's easy to sit back in the armchair and say that torture can never be used. But when you're in the foxhole, it's a very different deal.
And I respect—I think we all respect the fact that the president's in the foxhole every day. So he can hardly be blamed for asking you or his White House counsel or the Department of Defense to figure out when it comes to torture, what the law allows and when the law allows it and what there is permission to do.
The problem is not in asking the question. The problem isn't with the issues being explored. The problem is there has to be very careful guidance, and it should be made public. And most people are reasonable and would understand that. If it doesn't, it has no legitimacy.
And the penchant for secrecy, the fact that JAG lawyers had to release this is what, I think, ends up making this issue far more difficult -- or that's what's reported in the papers that JAG lawyers might have released this -- makes it more difficult.
To me, it's the same thing as what happened in the Patriot Act. The Patriot Act, as it emerged from the Congress, ended up being fairly balanced. But people wanted to scrutinize it, as they should, as they should with torture, as they should with any of these things.
Whenever security and liberty are in balance, that's just the point where the founding fathers wanted open and wide debate.
Well, you know, librarians all across this country thought that all the books were being looked at.
And it took a year. I wrote you letter after letter saying, "Make it public."
Finally, you made it public. No libraries. And the provision—I think it was 215, as I remember—wasn't used. But not before large numbers of people got into a whole panic.
So secrecy is the issue here. There has to be open debate, and particularly on an issue like this one, which is a sensitive issue, which is a difficult issue, which in our new world where everything is public makes your judge, the president's job in this difficult world difficult. And I appreciate that difficulty. I really do. I don't agree with the ideologues on either side here, far left or far right.
So I would renew the request that you make these memoranda public.
If they're not tight enough, if they allowed too many loopholes, we certainly don't want torture to be used willy-nilly. We don't want the whim of a lieutenant to say, "Hey, there's security at stake here. We should use it."
But we also don't want the situation like I mentioned in Chicago to preclude it. But it's got to be done carefully. And if it's public. And if there's debate you can be sure it'll be careful. That's what the founding fathers in their wisdom said.
Copyright 2004 by Buffalo Report, Inc.