Obama Calls Waterboarding Torture, But Refers to Bush Policies as “Mistakes” and Bad “Techniques”

Civil libertarians were a bit disappointed again in President Barack Obama’s press conference on Wednesday. While he reaffirmed that he views waterboarding to be torture (a well-established legal fact), he repeatedly referred to what the Bush Administration did as a “technique” of interrogation and a “mistake.” I discussed the Obama press conference and the torture issues on this segment of Rachel Maddow. I will be discussing these issues again on tonight’s Hardball.

Obama reaffirmed that “waterboarding violates our ideals and our values. I do believe that it is torture. . . . “I believe that waterboarding was torture. And I think that … whatever legal rationales were used, it was a mistake.” The use of terms like mistake cause international law and civil liberties advocates to object. Obama routinely avoids calling torture a crime. This is like a president who routinely avoids calling torture a crime. Both are demonstrably and undeniably crimes. To call torture “a technique” would be like a president saying that terrorism is a poor “technique of political expression.” These are crimes.

Clearly, this matter is in the hands of Holder. However, the reluctance of Obama to call torture a crime is an obviously intentional pattern of speech. Calling torture a crime does not prejudice the investigation of Bush officials — any more than calling terrorism a crime generally prejudices a case against those facing terrorism charges.

He then referred to torture as a “short cut”: “But I am absolutely convinced that the best way I can do that is to make sure that we are not taking short cuts that undermine who we are.”

What was also strange is that Obama was asked why he has filed extreme claims under state secrets doctrine in court. He insisted that only about a week after taking office, he was forced to make a decision and was not ready to modify that doctrine. The excuse simply does not track. Obviously, the Justice Department could have asked for more time before filing. What civil liberties attorney would deny the Administration a chance to review a doctrine in order to possibly withdraw claims? Certainly any court would give the Administration that chance. Instead, Obama is seeking to extinguish a variety of lawsuits as his lawyers debate whether they will make a change. That is a very convenient line of argument: you kill the cases that would expose the illegality of past programs and then reject or modify the claims used to terminate those cases.

For the transcript of the press conference, click here.

For the full story, click here.