The National Journal caught an interesting slip from John Negroponte, former director of national intelligence , who uttered The-Torture-Technique-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named”: waterboarding. While Attorney General Mukasey continues to say that he is still thinking about waterboarding months after his seemingly false testimony before Congress, Negroponte admitted in an interview that indeed it was used — but encourages people not to look back at such small things as a torture program.
Negroponte’s statement can in an interview with National Journal:
Q: When we as a nation are still debating the morality and efficacy of “harsh” interrogation techniques that much of the world consider torture, and indefinite detainment that lies outside the rule of international law, can the United States really win the “war of ideas” that President Bush insists is crucial to this conflict?
Negroponte: I get concerned that we’re too retrospective and tend to look in the rearview mirror too often at things that happened four or even six years ago. We’ve taken steps to address the issue of interrogations, for instance, and waterboarding has not been used in years. It wasn’t used when I was director of national intelligence, nor even for a few years before that. We’ve also taken significant steps to improve Guantanamo. People will tell you now that it is a world-class detention facility. But if you want to highlight and accent the negative, you can resurface these issues constantly to keep them alive. I would rather focus on what we need to do going forward.
Too retrospective? It was a rather ironic piece of advice from Negroponte who was opposed in his own position due to his rather shady past in government service. For a prior column, click here
Nevertheless, Negroponte’s comments may make it more difficult for Mukasey. One approach to continue to avoid acknowledging that President Bush ordered the commission of a crime was for Mukasey to pretend that he was not sure if our torture program was “true” waterboarding. That is an increasingly difficult task with Negroponte and one of the chief interrogators admitting that it was waterboarding, click here Even Canada now lists the United States as a country practicing torture, here
Fortunately for the White House, with leading Democrats are continuing to scuttle any serious investigation into torture behind the scenes, we will continue the “forwarding looking” approach that Negroponte advocates.
For the full story, click here