Ashcroft: Waterboarding ‘Consistently’ Seen As Legal, Refuses To Say Use On U.S. Troops Is ‘Unacceptable’

Think Progress
Friday, July 18, 2008

During a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee today, former Attorney General John Ashcroft falsely claimed that waterboarding has “consistently” been defined as “not torture” and refused to agree that the use of enhanced interrogation techniques — including waterboarding — on captured U.S. soldiers is “unacceptable” or “criminal.”

REP. MAXINE WATERS: Do you think that if these techniques were used on American soldiers that they would be totally unacceptable and even criminal? […]

ASHCROFT: My job, as Attorney General, was to try and elicit from the experts and the best people in the Department definitions that comported with the statues enacted by the Congress and the Constitution of the United States. And those statutes have consistently been interpreted so as to say, by the definitions that, waterboarding, as described in the CIA’s request, is not torture.

Watch it:

 

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In fact, waterboarding “has been prosecuted in U.S. courts since the late 1800s and was regarded by every U.S. administration before this one as torture.”

Further, Ashcroft’s non-answer with regard to the torture of captured American service men and women is reminiscent of State Department Legal Adviser John Bellinger’s refusal to condemn “the use of water boarding on an American national by a foreign intelligence service.” His comments are also in line with the sentiments of Guantanamo Bay’s legal adviser, Brigadier General Thomas W. Hartmann, who refused to answer whether or not the use of waterboarding by Iranians on U.S. service men and women would constitute torture.

In the words of former JAG officer Lt. Cmdr. Andrew Williams, Ashcroft and his fellow travelers have “sold all the soldiers and sailors at risk of capture and subsequent torture down the river.”

Transcript:

WATERS: Based on all of that information, those descriptions, your understandings, and the conclusions, if in fact these pactices were applied to American soldiers do you think that conclusion would be a good one or do you think that if these techniques were used on American soldiers that they would be totally unacceptable and even criminal?

ASHCROFT: My subscription to the memos and my belief that the law provides the basis for these memos persisted even in the presence of my son serving two tours of duty overseas in the Gulf area as a member of our armed forces. I know that his training included a number of activities that I think would be very, very difficult for any of us to sustain, including having to deal with evil chemistry and the like.

But my job, as Attorney General, was to try and elicit from the experts and the best people in the Department definitions that comported with the statues enacted by the Congress and the Constitution of the United States. And those statutes have consistently been interpreted so as to say, by the definitions, that waterboarding, as described in the CIA’s request, is not torture.

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8 Responses to “Ashcroft: Waterboarding ‘Consistently’ Seen As Legal, Refuses To Say Use On U.S. Troops Is ‘Unacceptable’”

1. chris diminie Says:
   July 18th, 2008 at 8:01 am

   Hear that? Military people? Did you hear that?
   Not only has this administration decided that torture is ok, they have decided that it’s ok if it happens to you. Please wake up.

   Didn’t all of you take an oath??? Aren’t you supposed to arrest anyone giving an illegal order? Following orders isn’t an excuse for committing war crimes by the way. Look up the list of Nazis hung by their necks for “following orders”.

2. Mary Says:
   July 18th, 2008 at 11:08 am

   FU****G unbelievable.

3. ERB Says:
   July 18th, 2008 at 12:54 pm

   IS HIS NAME ? ASHCROFT OR ASS HOLE .

4. HiFly Says:
   July 18th, 2008 at 1:08 pm

   ‘Consistantly’ is relative to how close your bloodline is to the NAZIs. For example Bush certainly feels his Third Reich connections allow him to declare any law he makes up to be constitutional because once again its just a “Gd Damn piece of paper.”

5. robertsgt40 Says:
   July 18th, 2008 at 1:31 pm

   I’ll take that answer to be a “no”

6. Frank Says:
   July 18th, 2008 at 2:15 pm

   When I was in the Marines in 1949, “Semper Fi” ing a fellow marine was a polite way of saying f**k you. Ashcraft has given new meaning to that term. “Always Faithful”?? to our military???

   The historic meaning of the Nuremburg trials would have been a sham were people like him not brought to the dock for being one of the key enablers of a war crimes criminal president.

7. Art Says:
   July 18th, 2008 at 6:32 pm

   Instead of just asking him these questions and getting doublespeak semi-answers, why not just waterboard motherfucking asscroft, and see what he thinks then?

8. Alienation Says:
   July 18th, 2008 at 10:11 pm

   Ever notice how every political officer will always go back and mention how he/she came to their own conclusion BASED on what the “best” people in the department advised which were based on what the statutes that were written by the “best” people in another department, based on the current interpretations of the definitions written by yet another group of “best” people?

   This guy hasn’t only been waterboarded to the point of vegetable-head but he’s obviously had to do a lot of sucky sucky on the “best” people in the department including Congress which had the authority to let him in. It’s the only explanation for how a complete nonsense answer is accepted as being sensible.

   I can see the add for a typical job (if one existed like his) in the local paper: must pass background criminal investigation, must pass drug screen, must pass polygraph test, must pass sucky sucky test, etc…