(AG Michael) Mukasey: 'It is not for me to decide' if waterboarding should be used

Source: USA Today

Attorney General Michael Mukasey tells the Senate Judiciary Committee that "it is not for me to decide" whether government interrogators should be allowed to use a harsh technique known as waterboarding.

Here's what Mukasey says in his prepared remarks: Whether or not waterboarding is something that will be authorized in the future is not for me to decide – certainly not for me alone. But I can tell you what it would take for waterboarding to be added to the CIA program. First, the CIA director would have to request its authorization. Second, he would have to ask me, or any successor of mine, if its use would be lawful—taking into account the particular facts and circumstances at issue, including how and why it is to be used, the limits of its use, and the safeguards that are in place for its use. And third, the issue would have to go to the President. Those steps may never be taken, but if they are I commit to you today that this Committee will be notified of the fact in the same manner as the Intelligence Committees.

Given that waterboarding is not part of the current program, and may never be added to the program, I do not think it would be appropriate for me to pass definitive judgment on the technique’s legality.

...

Update at 10:53 a.m. ET: Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., just asked Mukasey "would waterboarding be torture if it was done to you?"

"I would feel that it was," the former federal judge says in response.

Read more: http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2008/01/attorney-genera.html

Some Japanese Officers have been sentenced to up to sixteen years in prison for exactly this very thing. After WW II waterboarding was very much considered a war crime and torture and punishable by prison..Precedent has been established..

Something to hope for, anyway.

I hope it has legs!

U. S.

Biden got the AG to admit that, essentially the ends (the value of info) justifies the means (waterboarding). Biden then explained how this doesn't pass Aristotelian logic - leaves it in relative terms. Mukasey is just there to run out the clock for a year.

Also, Arlen Specter seems to have a genuine desire to find the truth, even if it harms the Bush Admin. I get the feeling he sees Administration efforts as violating separation of powers, and he's doing what he can to fight it. Even called out Cheney for going behind his back on committee affairs.

Sen. Grassley questioned the AG as to why he'd fight National Security whisteblowers reporting to members of Congress who have appropriate security clearance.

For 7 years, no Repub ever sided with truth or disclosure versus the Administration, simply voted in lock step. Few Republicans have ever given me the feeling of light at the end of the tunnel, but after listening to the usual GOP drivel from Sessions, the path taken by these two others was stark, and encouraging.

As much as they've deserved a broad brush, I felt it necessary to point out these moments from two Repulicans. Must that be a faux pas on a DU board? I welcome feedback.

per the Geneva Conventions.

this country is finished.

abu gonzales had no problem making it "legal" for moron* to drown people, but this asshole suddenly doesn't have an opinion???? That's rich.

the new name for Michael Mukasey is Milquetoast Maukasey.

Well, you are the attorney general.

He has refused his Assent to Laws.

He is barely looking up from the table and is relying on his interpretation of things as proof without going into how he arrives at that interpretation. Maybe being a judge for so long has made him believe that he does not have to prove anything to anyone.

http://www.c-span.org/watch

given his title as chief law enforcement apparatchik for the new Imperium.

Mukasey testimony "I don't know" :eyes:

....
Blackwater's number two, Cofer Black, puts CIA-type services on the open market for
hire by corporations or governments.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071224/scahill
....
Blackwater and other contractors operate in a legal gray area.
They are immune from prosecution in Iraqi courts. If the Justice
Department wants to bring criminal charges such as assault, manslaughter
or murder in a U.S. court, prosecutors would have to do so under the
Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act.

Mukasey testimony "I don't know" :crazy: