September 15, 2006 - Bush's terror bill is bad idea

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At his press conference today President Bush defended the use of torture by saying we must, "provide our military and intelligence professionals with the tools they need to protect our country from another attack ("Bush urges Congress to back terror bill," 9-15-06.)

The bad news is that Bush is unable or unwilling to absorb the lesson about the inherent unreliability of “intelligence” gathered through torture from his experience with pre-war intelligence failures relating to Iraq’s nonexistent WMDs and nonexistent ties to Al Queda.

The other piece of bad news is that Bush also seems not to understand that U.S. intelligence agencies had gathered, evidently entirely through lawful means, all the information needed to prevent the 911 attacks, had Bush and national security advisor Condoleezza Rice thought that the looming danger in July, 2001 was worth delaying Bush’s month-long summer vacation to coordinate a response to.

The good news is that since, finally, senior Republicans like John McCain, John Warner, Lindsey Graham and Colin Powell have stood up to Bush, Congress might actually be able to have a frank debate about at least one aspect of U.S. defense and foreign policy without opponents of the president being scared to speak their mind for fear of being accused of treason or of always “blaming America first!”

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