Torture Ban Draws Bush Veto of Intelligence Act

President Bush has vetoed the 2008 Intelligence Authorization Act due mainly to a provision of the bill that would have banned the CIA from employing interrogation practices like "waterboarding" on terrorist detainees.

Section 327 of the bill (H.R. 2082) requires all elements of the U.S. intelligence community to employ only the interrogation methods authorized in the Army Field Manual on Interrogations (.pdf).

In his Veto Message to Congress, President Bush stated that his veto was not driven by the bill’s banning of any particular interrogation method, specifically waterboarding. Instead, the President emphasized the “need to maintain a separate CIA program that will shield from disclosure to al Qaeda and other terrorists the interrogation techniques they may face upon capture.”

"I cannot sign into law a bill that would prevent me, and future Presidents, from authorizing the CIA to conduct a separate, lawful intelligence program, and from taking all lawful actions necessary to protect Americans from attack," President Bush told Congress.

In his Saturday radio address, the President credited the special CIA interrogation techniques with stopping a number of planned terrorist 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," he said.

Declaring preventing terrorist attacks to be the "highest responsibility" of government, President Bush concluded, "this is no time for Congress to abandon practices that have a proven track record of keeping America safe."

Also See:
About Presidential Vetoes
Torture and Executive Power (Civil Liberties)
Torture and The Ticking Bomb Scenario : The Law (US Politics)