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 News from Around the Americas | November 2005 
Bush: 'We Do Not Torture'
 Tabassum Zakaria - Reuters
| | President Bush addresses the media at Panama's presidential palace in Panama City November 7, 2005. Bush said on Monday the United States and Panama were close to completing a free trade agreement as he ended a Latin American tour that fell short of his goal of reviving talks on a hemispheric-wide trade zone. (Reuters/Alberto Lowe) |
Panama City - The U.S. government is aggressively taking action to protect Americans from terrorism but "we do not torture," President Bush said on Monday, responding to criticism of reported secret CIA prisons and the handling of terrorism suspects.
Bush defended his administration's efforts to stop the U.S. Congress from imposing rules on the handling of terrorism suspects.
The United States was sharply criticized for its handling of detainees after photographs of guards abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq shocked the world.
U.S. forces have held hundreds of detainees at known facilities outside the United States since the September 11, 2001, attacks, such as Guantanamo Bay. But senior leaders of al Qaeda who have captured, such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, have been kept in secret detention facilities overseas.
Bush did not confirm or deny the existence of CIA secret prisons that The Washington Post disclosed last week, and would not address demands by the International Committee of the Red Cross to have access to the suspects reportedly held at them.
"We are finding terrorists and bringing them to justice," Bush said at a news conference with Panamanian President Martin Torrijos. "We are gathering information about where the terrorists might be hiding. We are trying to disrupt their plots and plans," he said.
"Anything we do to that end in this effort, any activity we conduct, is within the law," Bush said. "We do not torture. And therefore we're working with Congress to make sure that as we go forward, we make it possible, more possible to do our job."
Vice President Dick Cheney has been spearheading an effort on Capitol Hill to have the CIA exempt from an amendment by Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain that would ban torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners.
The exemption would cover the secret prisons that the Post said were located in several eastern European democracies and other countries where key al Qaeda captives are being kept.
"I'm confident that when people see the facts, that they'll recognize that we've got more work to do and that we must protect ourselves in a way that is lawful," Bush said.
'Terrible Mistake'
Bush spoke a day after Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel told ABC's "This Week" that the Bush administration was making a "terrible mistake" in opposing the McCain amendment.
Hagel said that taking that stance also showed the need for Bush to widen his net of advisers as a way to regain his credibility with the American public amid sagging poll numbers over the Iraq war, soaring gasoline prices and other troubles.
The Senate voted 90-9 for the McCain amendment to prohibit the use of torture and abuse of prisoners in U.S. custody, adding it to a $440 billion defense spending bill despite a White House veto threat.
The House of Representatives did not include the detainee rules in its version of the bill, and House and Senate negotiators are working out differences for a final bill.
The White House position is that international treaty obligations already on the books govern the treatment of suspects and that the United States is observing those rules.
"There's an enemy that lurks and plots and plans and wants to hurt America again. And so you bet we'll aggressively pursue them. But we will do so under the law," Bush said.
(Additional reporting by Vicki Allen in Washington) |
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