Torture shocks

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A PIECE of legislation sits on the desk of President Bush today, awaiting his signature. Every expectation is that he will veto it. Another mistake.

more stories like thisThe bill is the Intelligence Authorization Act for fiscal 2008, with a provision tying CIA interrogation techniques to the US Army Field Manual, which is explicit in prohibiting "acts of violence or intimidation, including physical or mental torture, or exposure to inhumane treatment." The CIA would henceforth be forbidden to engage in any kind of torture, but so would any "instrumentality thereof, regardless of nationality or physical location." The legacy of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, renditions, and black sites would finally be sealed. The United States would bind itself to one standard of interrogation, completely prohibiting any form of torture. The nation would be back in line with standards of the Geneva Convention, and, as a group of retired admirals and generals put it recently, with "the moral principles on which this country was founded."

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