Cheney Defends Terrorism Interrogation Methods

In a recent televised interview, Former Vice-President Dick Cheney said that C.I.A. "enhanced interrogation techniques" including waterboarding were essential to defending the nation against terrorism ("Cheney Offers Sharp Defense of C.I.A. Interrogation Tactics" - New York Times, August 30, 2009). Cheney also stated that Attorney General Eric Holder's investigation into C.I.A. tactics would be detrimental to national security, noting that the inquiry must be politically motivated. Republican Senator John McCain disagreed with Cheney's assessment on the value of "extreme interrogation methods" and said that use of them went against provisions of the Geneva Conventions against torture and "produced unreliable intelligence."

Review selected library titles related to the terrorism investigations and torture at LSC-CyFair Branch Library. Click the title of a book, select the "Request" button in the listing, and enter your library card number and PIN for each title you want to reserve for pick up at the library. Call the library at 281-290-3219 to check your PIN if you do not remember it. Use these subject words and phrases to find more in the library catalog:

• military interrogation
  
• torture
• war and emergency powers
  

Torture edited by Debra A. Miller - Greenhaven Press, 2009.
call number: 364.67 Tor
Includes several pro/con essays on such topics as "Is torture morally wrong?" and "Torture has a place in the war on terror." - publisher's table of contents excerpt

The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals by Jane Mayer - Doubleday, 2008.
call number: 973.931 May
"This hard-hitting expose examines both the controversial excesses of the war on terror and the home-front struggle to circumvent legal obstacles to its prosecution . . . the author looks at the use of techniques like waterboarding, stress positions, sleep deprivation and sexual humiliation against prisoners by the American military and CIA; her chilling account compellingly argues that this 'enhanced interrogation' regimen constitutes torture." - Publishers Weekly review excerpt

Administration of Torture: A Documentary Record from Washington to Abu Ghraib and Beyond by Jameel Jaffer and Amrit Singh - Columbia University Press, 2007.
call number: 341.65 Jaf
". . . The most detailed account thus far of what took place in America's overseas detention centers, including a narrative essay in which Jameel Jaffer and Amrit Singh (American Civil Liberties Union litigators) draw the connection between the policies adopted by senior civilian and military officials and the torture and abuse that took place on the ground." - publisher's summary excerpt

The Terror Presidency: Law and Judgment Inside the Bush Administration by Jack Goldsmith - W.W. Norton, 2007.
call number: 342.73 Gol
"The author served as the head of George W. Bush's Office of Legal Counsel from October 2003 to July 2004, where he spent his short tenure challenging his colleagues' over-broad legal reasoning on such issues as the Terrorist Surveillance Program, the Geneva Conventions, military commissions, interrogation techniques, and Guantanamo Bay." - publisher's summary excerpt