Text: Bush’s Message to the House of Representatives
Published: March 8, 2008
Following is the text of President Bush’s message to the House of Representatives about his veto of the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008.
To the House of Representatives:
I am returning herewith without my approval H.R. 2082, the “Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008.” The bill would impede the United States government’s efforts to protect the American people effectively from terrorist attacks and other threats because it imposes several unnecessary and unacceptable burdens on our Intelligence Community.
Section 444 of the bill would impose additional Senate confirmation requirements on two national security positions — the director of the National Security Agency and the director of the National Reconnaissance Office. The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (9/11 Commission) observed that the effectiveness of the Intelligence Community suffers due to delays in the confirmation process; section 444 would only aggravate those serious problems. Senior intelligence officials need to assume their duties and responsibilities as quickly as possible to address the pressing requirements of national security. Instead of addressing the 9/11 Commission’s concern, the bill would subject two additional vital positions to a more protracted process of Senate confirmation. Apart from causing such potentially harmful delays, this unwarranted requirement for Senate confirmation would also risk injecting political pressure into these positions of technical expertise and public trust.
Section 413 would create a new inspector general for the intelligence community. This new office is duplicative and unnecessary. Each intelligence community component already has an inspector general, and the inspector general of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has been vested with all the legal powers of any inspector general to carry out investigations on matters under the jurisdiction of the director of national intelligence. There is no reason to commit taxpayer resources to an additional inspector general with competing jurisdiction over the same intelligence elements. Creating duplicative inspectors general, who may have inconsistent views on the handling of particular matters, has the potential to create conflicts and impede the intelligence community from efficiently resolving issues and carrying out its core mission. In addition, the creation of a new inspector general would add yet another position in the intelligence community subject to Senate confirmation, contrary to the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations.
Section 327 of the bill would harm our national security by requiring any element of the intelligence community to use only the interrogation methods authorized in the Army Field Manual on Interrogations. It is vitally important that the Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.) be allowed to maintain a separate and classified interrogation program. The Army field manual is directed at guiding the actions of nearly three million active duty and reserve military personnel in connection with the detention of lawful combatants during the course of traditional armed conflicts, but terrorists often are trained specifically to resist techniques prescribed in publicly available military regulations such as the manual. The C.I.A.’s ability to conduct a separate and specialized interrogation program for terrorists who possess the most critical information in the war on terror has helped the United States prevent a number of attacks, including plots to fly passenger airplanes into the Library Tower in Los Angeles and into Heathrow Airport or buildings in downtown London. While details of the current C.I.A. program are classified, the attorney general has reviewed it and determined that it is lawful under existing domestic and international law, including Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. I remain committed to an intelligence-gathering program that complies with our legal obligations and our basic values as a people. The United States opposes torture, and I remain committed to following international and domestic law regarding the humane treatment of people in its custody, including the “Detainee Treatment Act of 2005.”
My disagreement over section 327 is not over any particular interrogation technique; for instance, it is not over waterboarding, which is not part of the current C.I.A. program. Rather, my concern is the need to maintain a separate C.I.A. program that will shield from disclosure to Al Qaeda and other terrorists the interrogation techniques they may face upon capture. In accordance with a clear purpose of the “Military Commissions Act of 2006,” my veto is intended to allow the continuation of a separate and classified C.I.A. interrogation program that the Department of Justice has determined is lawful and that operates according to rules distinct from the more general rules applicable to the Department of Defense. While I will continue to work with the Congress on the implementation of laws passed in this area in recent years, I cannot sign into law a bill that would prevent me, and future presidents, from authorizing the C.I.A. to conduct a separate, lawful intelligence program, and from taking all lawful actions necessary to protect Americans from attack.
Other provisions of the bill purport to require the executive branch to submit information to the Congress that may be constitutionally protected from disclosure, including information the disclosure of which could impair foreign relations, the national security, the deliberative processes of the executive, or the performance of the executive’s constitutional duties. Section 326, for example, would require that the executive branch report, on a very short deadline and in accordance with a rigid set of specific statutory requirements, the details of highly classified interrogation techniques and the confidential legal advice concerning them. The executive branch voluntarily has provided much of this information to appropriate members of Congress, demonstrating that questions concerning access to such information are best addressed through the customary practices and arrangements between the executive and legislative branches on such matters, rather than through the enactment of legislation.
In addition, section 406 would require a consolidated inventory of Special Access Programs (S.A.P.’s) to be submitted to the Congress. Special Access Programs concern the most sensitive information maintained by the government, and S.A.P. materials are maintained separately precisely to avoid the existence of one document that can serve as a roadmap to our nation’s most vital information. The executive branch must be permitted to present this information in a manner that does not jeopardize national security. The executive branch will continue to keep the Congress appropriately informed of the matters to which the provisions relate in accordance with the accommodation principles the Constitution contemplates and the executive and legislative branches have long and successfully used to address information sharing on matters of national security.
Following is the text of President Bush’s radio address to the nation for Saturday, as released by the White House.
Good morning. This week, I addressed the Department of Homeland Security on its fifth anniversary and thanked the men and women who work tirelessly to keep us safe. Because of their hard work, and the efforts of many across all levels of government, we have not suffered another attack on our soil since September the 11th, 2001.
This is not for a lack of effort on the part of the enemy. Al Qaeda remains determined to attack America again. Two years ago, Osama bin Laden warned the American people, “Operations are under preparation, and you will see them on your own ground once they are finished.” Because the danger remains, we need to ensure our intelligence officials have all the tools they need to stop the terrorists.
Unfortunately, Congress recently sent me an intelligence authorization bill that would diminish these vital tools. So today, I vetoed it. And here is why:
The bill Congress sent me would take away one of the most valuable tools in the war on terror — the C.I.A. program to detain and question key terrorist leaders and operatives. This program has produced critical intelligence that has helped us prevent a number of attacks. The program helped us stop a plot to strike a U.S. Marine camp in Djibouti, a planned attack on the U.S. consulate in Karachi, a plot to hijack a passenger plane and fly it into Library Tower in Los Angeles, and a plot to crash passenger planes into Heathrow Airport or buildings in downtown London. And it has helped us understand Al Qaeda’s structure and financing and communications and logistics. Were it not for this program, our intelligence community believes that Al Qaeda and its allies would have succeeded in launching another attack against the American homeland.
The main reason this program has been effective is that it allows the C.I.A. to use specialized interrogation procedures to question a small number of the most dangerous terrorists under careful supervision. The bill Congress sent me would deprive the C.I.A. of the authority to use these safe and lawful techniques. Instead, it would restrict the C.I.A.’s range of acceptable interrogation methods to those provided in the Army field manual. The procedures in this manual were designed for use by soldiers questioning lawful combatants captured on the battlefield. They were not intended for intelligence professionals trained to question hardened terrorists.
Limiting the C.I.A.’s interrogation methods to those in the Army field manual would be dangerous because the manual is publicly available and easily accessible on the Internet. Shortly after 9/11, we learned that key Al Qaeda operatives had been trained to resist the methods outlined in the manual. And this is why we created alternative procedures to question the most dangerous Al Qaeda operatives, particularly those who might have knowledge of attacks planned on our homeland. The best source of information about terrorist attacks is the terrorists themselves. If we were to shut down this program and restrict the C.I.A. to methods in the field manual, we could lose vital information from senior Al Qaeda terrorists, and that could cost American lives.
The bill Congress sent me would not simply ban one particular interrogation method, as some have implied. Instead, it would eliminate all the alternative procedures we’ve developed to question the world’s most dangerous and violent terrorists. This would end an effective program that Congress authorized just over a year ago.
The fact that we have not been attacked over the past six and a half years is not a matter of chance. It is the result of good policies and the determined efforts of individuals carrying them out. We owe these individuals our thanks, and we owe them the authorities they need to do their jobs effectively.
We have no higher responsibility than stopping terrorist attacks. And this is no time for Congress to abandon practices that have a proven track record of keeping America safe.
Conservative Federalist Society Can Expect Its Status to Shrink
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., left, and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. did not get Supreme Court confirmation votes from President-elect Barack Obama. (By Lucian Perkins -- The Washington Post)
By Robert Barnes Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, November 21, 2008; Page A21
Last year, there was a candlelight dinner at sold-out, shut-down Union Station to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Federalist Society, with President Bush on stage and three Supreme Court justices in the audience.
This year, it's "welcome to the wilderness," as a former Clinton administration appointee good-naturedly told the group of lawyers yesterday at its annual meeting. William P. Marshall, a former deputy White House counsel for President Bill Clinton who teaches law at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, promised to share survival tips after his party's eight-year absence from power.
During that time, the conservative legal organization served as a catalyst for Bush's efforts to change the federal judiciary. But the group now finds itself sorting through the role it should play in scrutinizing President-elect Barack Obama's forthcoming efforts to bring about a similar change of his own.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) warned that although Obama campaigned during the general election as a moderate, McConnell expects any judicial appointments to be from the far left.
Obama has "some very unorthodox views about the nominating and confirmation of federal judges," McConnell said, noting that as a senator from Illinois, Obama voted against the confirmation of two of the group's icons: Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.
Federalist Society executive vice president Leonard A. Leo laughed when asked about the wilderness remark, saying, "I know the media likes to talk about us in terms of power and influence." But he said the group's primary goal has always been discussion of legal interpretation and limited constitutional government, and that that "remains as important as it was on November 3rd."
The organization has always believed that the promotion of judges who share its conservative views is the most lasting way to enshrine its principles, and it has been extremely successful. The liberal Alliance for Justice estimates that 46 percent of Bush's appointments have ties to the Federalist Society.
At one of the group's events last month, Bush bragged that he has appointed more than a third of the federal judiciary that will be in place when he leaves office. While he has appointed slightly fewer appeals court judges than Clinton -- 61 to 65 -- Bush's mostly young appointees will soon make up nearly two-thirds of the judges at that level, and Republican-appointed judges are in the majority on 10 of the 13 circuits.
Soon, it will be Obama's turn. He will immediately be presented with 15 circuit court vacancies, and there is a good chance that Congress will soon approve 14 new judgeships at the circuit level. Russell Wheeler, a scholar at the Brookings Institution, estimates that at the end of four years, Obama will have had the chance to increase the proportion of Democratic-appointed judges overall to nearly 60 percent.
McConnell and other speakers at the event were wary of Obama, who taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago and has talked about the intangibles that should go into choosing a judge. In particular, they recoil at a quote from Obama in a speech to Planned Parenthood in the summer of 2007.
"We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom," Obama said then. "The empathy to understand what it's like to be poor, or African American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that's the criteria by which I'm going to be selecting my judges."
Said McConnell: "If President Obama's top criterion in selecting nominees is 'empathy,' then the burden will be on them to demonstrate that their political views do not trump their even-handed reading of the law."
Obama's defenders have said he was not suggesting judges put aside the law.
How contentious a role Republican senators and legal activists want in opposing Obama nominees, though, is itself controversial. Republicans have sharply criticized the way Democratic senators have treated Bush nominees, while Democrats contend that Republican senators started it when Clinton was president.
William K. Kelley, an associate professor of law at Notre Dame and a former deputy counsel to Bush, recommended detente to society members. "My own view is that Republicans ought not to escalate," he said.
But he had sobering words for the group that has recently seen its own elevated to the Supreme Court. If and when Obama has a chance to make an appointment, Kelley said, he will be able to place there "whomever he wants."
"That's what 58 or 59 votes in the Senate does for you," said Kelley, referring to the size of the Democratic caucus in the 100-member body.
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