McCain Denies Giving O.K. to a CIA Torture Tactic

Source: TIME Magazine

McCain Denies Giving O.K. to a CIA Torture Tactic

U.S. Senator John McCain, a torture survivor from his days as a captive during the Vietnam War, says his private comments about harsh interrogation methods were misrepresented by the Bush Administration in a recently released legal document intended to justify a six-day course of sleep deprivation for one CIA detainee in November 2007.

The newly declassified memo by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel mentions a secret briefing McCain and other members of Congress received sometime before Oct. 17, 2006. The memo says the lawmakers were told about six CIA interrogation techniques, including prolonged sleep deprivation.

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Nevertheless, you have informed us that prior to passage of the Military Commissions Act, several Members of Congress, including the full memberships of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees and Senator McCain, were briefed by General Michael Hayden, Director of the CIA, on the six techniques that we discuss herein and that, General Hayden explained, would likely be necessary to the CIA detention and interrogation program should the legislation be enacted. In those classified and private conversations, none of the Members expressed the view that the CIA detention and interrogation program should be stopped, or that the techniques at issue were inappropriate. Many of those Members thereafter were critical in ensuring the passage of the legislation, making clear through their public statements and through their votes that they believed that a CIA program along the lines General Hayden described could and should continue.

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A spokeswoman for McCain said that contrary to those claims, the Arizona Republican repeatedly raised objections in private meetings, including one with Hayden, about the use of sleep deprivation as an interrogation technique. "Senator McCain clearly made the case that he was opposed to unduly coercive techniques, especially when used in combination or taken too far — including sleep deprivation," says Brooke Buchanan, a spokeswoman for McCain.




Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1919523,00.html

He flame is starting to flicker out.

before the time he was for being against it the time before that!

:crazy:
rocktivity

Strange man, Mr. McCain.

Rather like the rest of the man's thinking.

Home Politics YELLOW SPRINGS, Ohio, Feb. 20, 2008
McCain Defends Vote On Waterboarding
GOP Hopeful Says Bush Should Veto Bill Barring Harsh Interrogation Methods


Is Waterboarding Torture?

(AP) Republican presidential candidate John McCain said President Bush should veto a measure that would bar the CIA from using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods on terror suspects.

McCain voted against the bill, which would restrict the CIA to using only the 19 interrogation techniques listed in the Army field manual.

His vote was controversial because the manual prohibits waterboarding - a simulated drowning technique that McCain also opposes - yet McCain doesn't want the CIA bound by the manual and its prohibitions.

McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, is well-known for his opposition to waterboarding, which puts him at odds with the Bush administration.

"I knew I would be criticized for it," McCain told reporters Wednesday in Ohio. "I think I can show my record is clear. I said there should be additional techniques allowed to other agencies of government as long as they were not" torture.

"I was on the record as saying that they could use additional techniques as long as they were not cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment," McCain said. "So the vote was in keeping with my clear record of saying that they could have additional techniques, but those techniques could not violate" international rules against torture.

The legislation bars the CIA from using waterboarding, sensory deprivation or other harsh coercive methods to break a prisoner who refuses to answer questions. Those practices were banned by the military in 2006.

President Bush has threatened to veto the legislation, which cleared the House in December and won Senate approval last week.

One supporter of the bill, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said last week that if Bush vetoes the measure, "he will be voting in favor of waterboarding."

If a president disagrees with legislation, he should veto it, McCain said. He said he disapproves that Bush sometimes signs legislation he dislikes, then issues critical "signing statements" outlining his objections.

McCain said he would never issue a critical signing statement: "If I disagree with a law that's passed, I'll veto it."

"I think if you disagree with a law, you have a constitutional right to veto that, authority to veto that," McCain said.

he's a regular Rich Little

his wife made him Rich
the little part you can figure out

"Bradbury argued that the lack of objections from members of Congress following the classified briefing contributed to providing 'a relevant measure of contemporary standards.' If Bradbury had concluded that extended sleep deprivation did 'shock the conscience,' the technique would have been illegal under the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, which applied constitutional standards to the treatment of CIA detainees."

Somebody is lying here.

The CIA says no one objected, Bradbury used this acquiescence to justify the use of prolonged sleep deprivation. McCain used the example of a fellow POW in Vietnam, who was sleep deprived, to illustrate his opposition to the technique, yet the CIA says he didn't object during the briefing. So McCain now agrees with Nancy Pelosi that the CIA lied to congress, right?

You can't have it both way Gramps.