Rice Defends Harsh Interrogations

During a speech delivered at the headquarters of internet giant Google on Thursday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice defended harsh interrogation techniques used on terrorism suspects and approved by the Bush administration. Rice stated that the tough interrogations were necessary to prevent new attacks targeting Americans, and complied with US law and treaty obligations.^[1]

Rice did admit that the US was “a different place” following 9/11, and that the Bush administration’s top priority had been aimed at preventing new attacks, not necessarily observing strict legal boundaries. "The fact is that after Sept. 11, whatever was legal in the face of not just the attacks of Sept. 11, but the anthrax attacks that happened, we were in an environment in which saving America from the next attack was paramount," she stated.^[2]

She commented that legal restrictions on the treatment of detainees has evolved dramatically since 2002, when officials allowed harsh techniques, some of which critics have argued amounted to torture. Rice noted that the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act, prohibiting cruel, inhuman, and degrading torture marked the biggest change in the treatment of terror suspects. "Now, there has been a long evolution in American policy about detainees and about interrogations…We now have in place a law that was not there in 2002 and 2003."^[3]

"So the ground is different now," she added.^[4]

Rice stated that America was safer as a result of the interrogation techniques used on al-Qaeda detainees during the year following the 9/11 attacks. "We now know a great deal more about how al-Qaeda operates thanks to what we were able to learn from those early detainees," commented Rice. "We now have networks that give us information much better than in 2002 and 2003 and these issues have evolved…I think that we are now in a different place now then we were.”^[5]

And even despite the criticism made by various groups targeted at the legality of the techniques, Rice defended the interrogations. "I don't want anyone to believe that even when we were in that different place that we failed to ask the question: 'Are we living up to our laws and to our treaty obligations?' We asked the questions even then, but it is a different America now than what has been and gone."^[6]

The comments were made in response to a question addressing waterboarding, asked by a Google employee at a town hall meeting.^[7]


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[1] Matthew Lee, Rice defends post 9/11 interrogation techniques, AP Online, May 23, 2008 (available at www.ap.google.com).

[2] Id.

[3] Id.

[4] Id.

[5] Id.

[6] Id.

[7] Id.