It was a day bereft of happiness, a day that the City on Hill shone less brightly for in truth today marks a moment in our national history where we must confront failure, the failure of some amongst us to live up to the ideals of this felicitous union we call the United States. While I have never shared the view that the United States represents the last best chance for mankind nor that the American Republic is without sin, for its history is littered with ignominious episodes that reflect poorly on our national character. I do, however, take the view that this noble experiment in human association we call a government of the people, for the people and by the people is one worth fighting for and perfecting. We can get it right if we so endeavor.
I have read the President’s Statement of Memos a half dozen times, perhaps more. I have searched my conscience and I must admit that I am troubled by the closing paragraphs of the President’s statement.
This is a time for reflection, not retribution. I respect the strong views and emotions that these issues evoke. We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history. But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past. Our national greatness is embedded in America’s ability to right its course in concert with our core values, and to move forward with confidence. That is why we must resist the forces that divide us, and instead come together on behalf of our common future.
The United States is a nation of laws. My Administration will always act in accordance with those laws, and with an unshakeable commitment to our ideals. That is why we have released these memos, and that is why we have taken steps to ensure that the actions described within them never take place again.
No doubt this is a time for reflection. Our system, that nation of laws, failed. But I am afraid that I am perplexed by the President’s call to allow injustice to simply pass. It’s not retribution that should be sought but justice. To pretend that we can close this “dark and painful chapter in our history” as the President notes by simply shutting the door on justice further stains our national enterprise. It is because the United States aspires to be a nation of laws at all times for all and not just at select moments for some that it is required that the intellectual authors of these unAmerican and illegal practices that have shamed our national honor and impugned our national character be punished.
To this end, I welcome Senator Leahy’s call for a Reconciliation Process and Truth Commission.
We need to get to the bottom of what happened — and why — so we make sure it never happens again.
One path to that goal would be a reconciliation process and truth commission. We could develop and authorize a person or group of people universally recognized as fair minded, and without axes to grind. Their straightforward mission would be to find the truth. People would be invited to come forward and share their knowledge and experiences, not for purposes of constructing criminal indictments, but to assemble the facts. If needed, such a process could involve subpoena powers, and even the authority to obtain immunity from prosecutions in order to get to the whole truth. Congress has already granted immunity, over my objection, to those who facilitated warrantless wiretaps and those who conducted cruel interrogations. It would be far better to use that authority to learn the truth.
During the past several years, this country has been divided as deeply as it has been at any time in our history since the Civil War. It has made our government less productive and our society less civil. President Obama is right that we cannot afford extreme partisanship and debilitating divisions. In this week when we begin commemorating the Lincoln bicentennial, there is need, again, “to bind up the nation’s wounds.” President Lincoln urged that course in his second inaugural address some seven score and four years ago.
Rather than vengeance, we need a fair-minded pursuit of what actually happened. Sometimes the best way to move forward is getting to the truth, finding out what happened, so we can make sure it does not happen again. When I came to the Senate, the Church Committee was working to expose the excesses of an earlier era. Its work helped ensure that in years to come, we did not repeat the mistakes of the past. We need to think about whether we have arrived at such a time, again. We need to come to a shared understanding of the failures of the recent past.
It is not the CIA agents who need to be brought to justice, it is the purveyors of evil who served in the Bush Administration that provided the intellectual underpinnings for violations of domestic laws and international treaties even if that means bringing the former President before an inquiry. The first of the memos, from August 2002, was signed by Jay S. Bybee, who oversaw the Office of Legal Counsel, and gave the C.I.A. its first detailed legal approval for waterboarding and other harsh treatment. Three others, signed by Steven G. Bradbury, sought to reassure the agency in May 2005 that its methods were still legal, even when multiple methods were used in combination, and despite the prohibition in international law against “cruel, inhuman or degrading” treatment.
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