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White House hopeful Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on Thursday condemned the CIA’s use of brutal interrogation techniques and said the Bush administration’s reported authorization of such methods “is an outrageous betrayal of our core values, and a grave danger to our security.” Obama responded to a report in The New York Times that said the administration, while publicly denouncing torture, secretly allowed the most aggressive interrogation techniques ever used by the CIA, including “water-boarding,” sleep deprivation and slaps to the head, as well as keeping suspects in frigid temperatures for extended periods of time. “We must do whatever it takes to track down and capture or kill terrorists, but torture is not a part of the answer — it is a fundamental part of the problem with this administration's approach,” Obama said. He added that it is “time to stop telling the American people one thing in public while doing something else in the shadows.” President Bush has forcefully rejected torture in several public remarks. “We do not condone torture. I have never ordered torture. I will never order torture. The values of this country are such that torture is not a part of our soul and our being,” Bush said in 2004. Meantime, Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee sent a letter to the Department of Justice asking about two “secret legal opinions” referenced in the article. “We request that both these opinions be provided immediately to the Judiciary Committee, and that Steven Bradbury, the acting head of the Office of Legal Counsel and the apparent author of the opinions, be made available for prompt Committee hearings,” wrote John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), the panel’s chairman, and Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), who heads the subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. |
