Bill Clinton Quotes
Torture must only be hypothetical exception, not US policy.
Clinton, Bill. Interview with National Public Radio, 2006.
Clinton did believe that there might be a rare situation where extra judicial methods might be resorted to but he felt that those involved should be ready to take the responsibility and the consequence. He had suggested formalizing the theoretical exception, but then changed his mind as the exception would be abused.
There were however several instances of torture being used. The administration used the term “enhanced interrogation” for waterboarding and other acts that the US has previously punished Americans for using. The George W. Bush administration actually had a team of their lawyers in the Justice Department write a memo to uniquely define torture so as not to include the torture techniques that were used as “enhanced interrogation”.
At the time CIA apologists for the torture they carried out with the facilitation of the Justice Department often justified the torture because they claimed that it worked. Critics rose to the bait and argued that proposition as there was much evidence that it did not, and nothing was learned that had not been obtained without torture. However, Cole argues that that was the wrong issue. Torture was outlawed whether it worked or not. The United States under Ronald Reagan signed the treaty and the Senate ratified it. Torture is wrong whether or not it works.
The Senate was debating a law to make torture of foreigners and captives illegal under all circumstances. Vice President Cheney was very strongly opposed wanting an exception made for the CIA.
This was untrue. The CIA used several forms of torture on high value detainees. The torture was psychological and physical. Even the FBI had agents who observed CIA interrogations and complained to their supervisors. For cover, the George W. Bush administration, got 3 Justice Department Attorneys to write a secret memo defining certain types of torture as “enhanced interrogation”. Water Boarding, for which American soldiers had been court martialed and convicted for torture then became enhanced interrogation, and was used on a few terrorists. Because of the rigged Justice Department memo, the CIA claimed that they did not torture people. Another thing the CIA did was to turn over enemy to the intelligence services of third countries like Egypt, where torture was used commonly with no regard for the Geneva convention or other human rights provision. CIA agents then watched and asked questions but they claimed that they did not torture which was in some sense literally true.
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who was the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Clinton was previously Governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and 1983 to 1992, and the Arkansas Attorney General from 1977 to 1979. Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe III – he changed to his stepfather's name at age 15.
