Harry Reid | Voting No on Gonzales
End The War
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid released the
following statement:
Our great Nation was founded on the idea of human rights. From the
very beginning, we were designed to be a place where men and women
could live free, a place where no man was above the law, a place where
the state would never trample on the rights of individuals.
We did not always live up to our ideals. Along the way, we stumbled.
We have made mistakes. But we always worked to correct our mistakes. We
worked to uphold the core values that formed our national soul.
Because of our unshakable belief in human rights, we became a ray of
light, a beacon for people in other parts of the world. America has
been that beacon because we are a nation governed by laws, not by men.
We are a nation where no one, not even the President of the United
States, is above the law. We are a nation where our military is bound
by the uniform Code of Military Justice and the laws of war. And we are
a nation that even at war stands for and upholds the rule of law.
There is no question gathering intelligence from suspects in our war
on terror is critical to protecting this great Nation. No one in this
Chamber would argue otherwise, I would think. These are very bad people
with whom we are dealing. But when interrogation turns to torture, it
puts our own soldiers at risk. It undermines the very freedoms
Americans are fighting to protect.
We are a nation at war - a war in Iraq and a war against terrorism
war does not give our civilian leaders the authority to cast aside the
laws of armed conflict, nor does it allow our Commander in Chief to
decide which laws apply and which laws do not apply. To do so puts, I
repeat, our own soldiers and our Nation at risk.
But that is what has occurred under the direction and coordination of
the man seeking to be Attorney General of the United States, Alberto
Gonzales, a man I personally like, but whose judgment on these very
serious matters was flawed and is flawed.
I have heard a great deal on this Senate floor about Judge Gonzales's
background over the last few days, how his parents were migrant farm
workers, and how he worked his way up from poverty. It is an inspiring
story, and it is one that resonates with me.
I met with Judge Gonzales after the President sent his nomination to
the Senate. We talked about our childhoods, about coming from small
rural towns, some would say without many advantages. The fact that
someone from a place called Humble, TX, and someone from a place called
Searchlight, NV, have had an opportunity to achieve their dream is what
America is all about.
But, embodying the American dream is not a sufficient qualification
to be Attorney General of the United States.
The Attorney General is the people's lawyer, not the President's
lawyer. He is charged with upholding the Constitution and the rule of
law. The Attorney General must be independent, and he must be clear
that abuses by our Government will not be tolerated. Judge Gonzales's
appearance before the Judiciary Committee raised serious questions
about his ability to be that force in the Justice Department. That is
why I am going to vote against him.
In 2002, Judge Gonzales provided legal advice to the President of the
United States calling parts of the Geneva Conventions obsolete and
quaint - that is what he said, they were obsolete and quaint - opening
the door for confusion and a range of harsh interrogation techniques.
What are the Geneva Conventions? At the end of the Civil War, people
from around the world decided there should be some semblance of order
in how war is conducted. Starting in 1864, there was a convention
adopted, and there have been four revisions to the Geneva Convention.
That is why it is referred to as the Geneva Conventions because it is,
in effect, four treaties.
This is basically an agreement concerning the treatment of prisoners
of war, of the sick, wounded, and dead in battle. These are treaties
that relate to what happens to human beings in war. These conventions
have been accepted by virtually every nation in the world.
A former Navy judge advocate general, RADM John Hutson, said:
"When you say something down the chain of command, like 'the Geneva
Conventions don't apply,' that sets the stage for the kind of chaos we
have seen."
The President signed an order accepting the reasoning of the Gonzales
memo. The Presidential order was the legal basis for the interrogation
techniques and other actions, including torture, which simply took as
fact that the Geneva Conventions did not apply.
Can you imagine that, the United States saying the Geneva Conventions
do not apply? But that is what took place.
Our military lawyers, not people who are retired acting as
Monday-morning quarterbacks, but our military lawyers who are working
today, who are experts in the field, have said the interrogation
techniques authorized as a result of the Presidential order and allowed
under the Gonzales reasoning were in violation of the U.S. military
law, the U.S. criminal law, and international law.
According to RADM Don Guter, a former Navy judge advocate general:
"If we - we being the uniformed lawyers - that is, the lawyers who
are in the U.S. military -- had been listened to and what we said put
into practice, then these abuses would not have occurred."
So the people who serve in our military who gave legal advice said
this should never have happened.
After the scandal at Abu Ghraib and the recent allegations of abuse
at Guantanamo, I expected at this hearing before the Judiciary
Committee to hear Judge Gonzales discuss the error of the
administration's policies and the legal advice he provided the
President.
When he came before the committee, Judge Gonzales stood by his legal
reasoning and the policy of his reasoning. Judge Gonzales called the
President's Geneva determination "absolutely the right decision."
With regard to the legal opinion Judge Gonzales solicited in the
Justice Department so-called "torture memo," he stated at his hearing,
"I don't have a disagreement with the conclusions then reached by the
Department," even though the Department itself has now disavowed this
legal reasoning.
I heard Senator Kennedy state that the dean of Yale Law School,
probably the No. 1 law school in the entire country, has said he has
never seen legal reasoning as bad as the Gonzales memo. That is pretty
bad.
For example, military lawyers who are experts in the field have said
without the order issued by the President, at Mr. Gonzales's behest,
they would take the position that the interrogation techniques used
against Taliban prisoners and later in Iraq would be violations of U.S.
military law, U.S. criminal law, and international law.
So who are we to believe? These people who are dedicated to making
sure that they, as the legal officers of the U.S. military, do what is
right? They say we should follow the Geneva Conventions. Gonzales said
- not necessary.
I will say a word about the interrogation techniques that were
authorized. They included forced nakedness, forced shaving of beards,
and the use of dogs, just to name a few. Many are specifically designed
to attack the prisoner's cultural and religious taboos.
In describing them, the similarities to what eventually happened at
Abu Ghraib are obvious. Once you order an 18-year-old, a young man or
woman, to strip prisoners naked, to force them into painful positions,
to shave their beards in violation of their religious beliefs, to lock
them alone in the dark and cold, how do you tell him to stop? You
cannot.
We have seen the pictures of naked men stacked on top of each other
in the so-called pyramid; rapes of men, rapes of women, leading in some
cases to death. How does one tell an American soldier that torture is a
valid treatment as long as the Government says the prisoner is not
covered by the Geneva Conventions?
Any student of history would know that the North Vietnamese said
captured U.S. pilots were not protected as prisoners of war because
there was no declared war. That is what happened in the Vietnam war.
They kept our men in solitary confinement for months, sometimes years
at a time.
I will tell my colleagues about one of our men and what that man said
about his treatment by the Vietnamese:
"It's an awful thing, solitary. It crushes your spirit and weakens
your resistance more effectively than any other form of
mistreatment..."
Here, I would make an editorial comment that this man knows about any
other kind of treatment. He was brutally beaten, limbs broken, limbs
already broken rebroken. So he knows what he is talking about. So I
repeat, a direct quote:
"It's an awful thing, solitary. It crushes your spirit and weakens
your resistance more effectively than any other form of mistreatment.
Having no one else to rely on, to share confidences with, to seek
counsel from, you begin to doubt your judgment and your courage."
The man who said these words was a Navy pilot, LCDR John McCain. For
John McCain and all our soldiers serving across the globe, we need to
stand against torture because of what it does to us as a country, to
those serving now, to the future servicemen of our country, and what it
does to us as a nation.
If we fail to oppose an evil as obvious as torture obvious it is
wrong for my country when I reflect that God is just."
End The War
response to today's confirmation by the Senate of Alberto Gonzales to
be Attorney General. The statement is a powerful renunciation of
torture and Gonzales's active role in making it acceptable U.S. policy.
While we applaud this position in favor of law and principle, there are
a few facts we should not lose sight of: Alberto Gonzales did write, at
the behest of George W. Bush, legal opinions that dismissed U.S. law,
International law, and the Geneva conventions, laying the groundwork
for the atrocities we are discovering at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo.
That very same Alberto Gonzales will now be the highest ranking law
enforcement officer in the United States. That is deeply troubling.
For the record, the Senate vote was largely along party lines, with all
Republicans and six Democrats voting to confirm. The Democrats who
voted to confirm Gonzales were: Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, Ken
Salazar of Colorado, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Bill Nelson of
Florida, Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Mark Pryor of Arkansas. The final
vote was 60-36 in favor of confirmation. Several Democrats and at least
one Republican chose not to vote.