defensive and full of doubletalk, and Helen (Thomas?) and Martha (Raddatz?) were especially feisty.
Where is "the battlefield" anyway? In the NYC subways?
From
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/09/20060914-8.html :
September 14, 2006 Press Briefing by Tony Snow
MR. SNOW: what's going on in the Senate is that people are looking at some very complex legal issues, trying to figure out how to make good and how to put into legislation the dictates of the Supreme Court's Hamdan decision, which among other things applies Common Article III of the Geneva Conventions to the global war on terror.
The fundamental issue right now, maybe the most important issue, is something the President talked about a week ago, which is a CIA program that involves the questioning of people who have been taken off the battlefield, getting information that can be used to save American lives....
this is an effort not to change or amend Common Article III, but in fact, to give it substance and clarity....
Q You claim -- all right, I'll restate the question. You claim that you are not redefining --
MR. SNOW: Right. Look at this --
Q -- Article III. Everyone who opposes you on this, from Secretary Powell, to Senator Warner, to Senator Graham, to Senator McCain, says, in effect, you are trying to redefine it by excluding language you consider vague that they think is actually important.
MR. SNOW: No, no, no -- oh, thank you, thank you. No, no, that's -- okay, thank you. No, we're not excluding it. We're defining what that language means, so, heart be still. No, the fact is the language is vague, and so nobody knows exactly what would be prohibited or not prohibited under it.
And we're saying, no, here are the things that ought to be prohibited under it. And that's an important point, and I'm glad you asked, because I didn't quite understand. We're saying that the language is vague, and therefore you define it by putting together the proper framework for saying, I'm sorry, if you do this, you're guilty of cruel and inhumane treatment -- or cruel and degrading treatment. You are in violation of Common Article III if you do the following, and the following are the things that are specified in the Detainee Treatment Act....
Q There's been a lot of wars.
MR. SNOW: But, you know what, Helen, it didn't apply to most of those wars. It didn't apply to most of those wars which is why people have not asked the questions.
Q This seems -- hang on a second -- this seems to be --
MR. SNOW: Well, and let me just make the point here, the predicate of your question was, it had been sitting around and everybody knew what the meaning was, and the fact is, nobody knew what the meaning was....
Q All right, the second question is, you kind of laughed off this rumor you said on Capitol Hill that the JAG had been coerced to write this letter.
MR. SNOW: JAGs, yes.
Q The officers, the JAG officers.
MR. SNOW: Yes.
Q Senator Graham is telling reporters on Capitol Hill that the White House had them in a meeting for five hours last night and tried to force them to sign a prepared statement. And he said, reading this JAG letter they ended up writing leaves total ambiguity on interpretation. This is Senator Lindsey Graham. What's your response to that?
MR. SNOW: It sounds like he's talking there's a detainee crisis.
Q Wait a minute, I think he deserves an answer, a real answer....
Q But, yes, Colin Powell, what about his larger point, that the world is beginning to doubt the moral basis for the war on terror?
MR. SNOW: I don't think so. Look at what happened on September 11th. You had Jacques Chirac sending regards this week. We've had a number of other people....
Martha.
Q Outside Colin Powell's mind, is that not an issue for this administration? Is that not something you should be thinking about?
MR. SNOW: Well, why do you think -- why on earth, Martha, do you think we're not taking such pains to try to be absolutely transparent and lay out for the entire world not only standards by which we conduct these things, but say to the rest of the world you've got to be precise --
Q But you said, "I don't think so," about moral basis, you didn't think so because Jacques Chirac --
MR. SNOW: He said, "moral basis of the war on terror." The moral basis of the war on terror is -- I don't think you're going to try to claim moral equivalence between George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden. I don't think you want to go there. And that is --
Q I don't think I'd be going there....
Helen.
Q Does the President think water-boarding and all of the other things that we saw at Abu Ghraib were cruel and inhumane --
MR. SNOW: You didn't see water-boarding at Abu Ghraib. What you saw were violations that were immediately prosecuted and vigorously. What the President believes is you need to find ways to question people legally and save lives, and that remains his absolute determination.
Q But has he ruled out those measures?
MR. SNOW: I am not going to go into what's ruled in or ruled out for the same reasons that we've discussed many times here. People who are committing acts of terror pay very close attention to what we say. And if we start specifying means and methods by which people get information, they will adjust....
Q What are other countries to make of the U.S., as you put it, adding definition to the Geneva Convention? Is the U.S., in effect, saying, all the rest of you do this, too -- adversaries and friends, alike?
MR. SNOW: Look, I think this is something that we'd be -- we would not be frightened if adversaries did this. We would not be at all frightened if they did this. I think there's a perception going around that this is going to condone and counsel all sorts of horrible treatment. It's not. And therefore, if we allow -- if we set a standard to treaty obligations that in the past have been vague -- and again, we did it with genocide; we did it with other things. This is not unusual. And I think what we're doing is setting a standard for clarity...
Q So it would be okay if, say, what the President has described as the axis of evil, for Iran, North Korea or Syria or any of those countries to do this --
MR. SNOW: Yes. Yes. Absolutely. The bad news is, quite often the people we're fighting don't give a damn about this. They'd much rather slit a throat on video. ...
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