Obama Calls It "Torture" on Prime Time

By Matt Renner, TruthOut.org. Posted April 30, 2009.

The East Room, the White House - Under the spotlight of his third prime-time press conference, on his 100th day in office, President Barack Obama was unequivocal in his rejection of torture on moral and ethical grounds and said specifically that waterboarding is an illegal torture technique.

"What I've said - and I will repeat - is that waterboarding violates our ideals and our values. I do believe that it is torture. I don't think that's just my opinion; that's the opinion of many who've examined the topic. And that's why I put an end to these practices," Obama said.

In response to a question from ABC News' Jake Tapper, Obama said that using torture "corrodes the character of a country," and banning the technique "takes away a critical recruitment tool," used by terrorist groups.

Despite asking two questions and a follow-up about the controversy over the Bush administrations torture policy, the White House press corps failed to ask about building pressure on Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate possible violations of law. Any mention of criminal prosecution or investigation by Congress was conspicuously absent from the question posed by ABC's Tapper and CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller.

The president sidestepped former Vice President Richard Cheney's narrow argument that the brutal interrogations of terrorism suspects, which included the use of waterboarding, led to useful intelligence which prevented terrorist attacks.

"It worked. It has been enormously valuable in terms of saving lives and preventing another mass casualty attack against the United States," Cheney recently told Fox News, in reference to the use of waterboarding and other harsh methods used on captured terrorist suspects.

Cheney has been pushing for the release of classified documents, which he says will show that the highly controversial interrogation program employed by the Bush administration resulted in useful intelligence.

Obama's response was a deflection, not a frontal attack on Cheney's argument.

"And that's why I put an end to these practices. I'm absolutely convinced it was the right thing to do - not because there might not have been information that was yielded by these various detainees who were subjected to this treatment, but because we could have gotten this information in other ways - in ways that were consistent with our values, in ways that were consistent with who we are," Obama said, speaking about his decision to outlaw torturous interrogation techniques during his first days in office.

Obama tried to reframe the argument, referring to torture as a "shortcut," the use of which does not prove that the same information could not have been produced using other methods of interrogation.

"Churchill understood, you start taking shortcuts, and over time, that corrodes what's - what's best in a people," Obama said, after referring to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill's decision to refrain from torturing captured Nazi soldiers during World War II.

Later in the conference, Obama again parried Cheney's argument, "… public reports and the public justifications, for these techniques, which is that we got information, from these individuals that were subjected to these techniques, doesn't answer the core question which is, could we have gotten that same information without resorting to these techniques? And it doesn't answer the broader question, are we safer as a consequence of having used these techniques?"

The president went on to expand on the idea that torture hurts the standing of the United States internationally.

"I strongly believe that the steps that we've taken to prevent these kind of enhanced interrogation techniques will make us stronger over the long term, and make us safer over the long term, because it will put us in a - in a position where we can still get information. In some cases, it may be harder. But part of what makes us, I think, still a beacon to the world is that we are willing to hold true to our ideals, even when it's hard, not just when it's easy."

When asked about the classified documents which Cheney says would demonstrate the usefulness of torturous interrogation, Obama said that he had not seen any evidence that the results of torture justify its use.

"… Ultimately I will be judged, as commander in chief, on how safe I'm keeping the American people. That's the responsibility I wake up with. And it's the responsibility I go to sleep with. And so I will do whatever is required to keep the American people safe. But I am absolutely convinced that the best way I can do that is to make sure that we are not taking shortcuts that undermine who we are. And - and there have been no circumstances during the course of this first hundred days in which I have seen information that would make me second-guess the decision that I've made," Obama said.

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Matt Renner is an editor and Washington reporter for Truthout. He can be reached at Matt@truthout.org.

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