Posted on 11/10/2005 12:17:59 PM PST by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON - Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist says he is more concerned about the leak of information regarding secret CIA detention centers than activity in the prisons themselves.
Frist told reporters Thursday that while he believed illegal activity should not take place at detention centers, he believes the leak itself poses a greater threat to national security and is "not concerned about what goes on" behind the prison walls.
"My concern is with leaks of information that jeopardize your safety and security — period," Frist said. "That is a legitimate concern."
He noted that the CIA has also called for a federal criminal investigation into the leak of possibly classified information on secret prisons to The Washington Post. A Nov. 2 Post article touched on a number of sensitive national security issues, including the existence of secret CIA detention centers for suspected terrorists in Eastern European democracies. The Bush administration has neither confirmed nor denied that report.
Frist was asked if that meant he was not concerned about investigating what goes on in detention centers.
"I am not concerned about what goes on and I'm not going to comment about the nature of that," Frist replied.
He added that as Senate majority leader he is privy to classified information and discussions about prison activity. "I'm going to make sure that everything that's done is consistent with the Constitution ... and the laws of the United States of America," he said.
Frist and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., wrote the leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees earlier this week calling for a joint congressional investigation into the leak.
"What is the actual and potential damage done to the national security of the United States and our partners in the global war on terror?" the letter said, referring to the leak.
The Post's story said the CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al-Qaida captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, part of a covert prison system set up by the agency four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries. Those countries, the Post said, include several democracies.
But if we have the right to torture people we arrest, then they have the right to torture us. So if some American boy gets tortured somewhere, and I hear you getting all indignant, then I'm going to be very disappointed in you. I should add that I take my cue in all this from the one politician in the picture who actually was tortured.
Well, I have no illusions I'll convince a pacifist of anything. Just be aware, Nick, that there are people (good people, I might add) who totally, completely and forever disagree with you on this.
They were cutting off heads of people they captured long long long before the leftist treasonous US media "broke" the "story" of the panty-on-heads "torture" in the Iraq. Give me a break. You're stuck on moral equivalence. If you persist in seeing moral equivalence between the people who protect innocent Americans and the people who behead innocent Americans, then this conversation is a waste of time.
You know what I think.
I know what you think.
Never the twain shall meet.
I COMPLETELY AGREE that the people who bomb innocents should suffer for it. Suffer to the degree of the suffering they have caused. The only question here is on what basis the decision of who is innocent and who is guilty is being made. At Nuremberg we did not just slaughter even known Nazis. We tried them, and then we hanged them. That open justice made us the leaders of the post war world. I've got teenage kids and I'd like them to inherit the position of leadership that my generation did. I'm with McCain on this one.
I don't want to punish people after they've killed millions. I want to intercept the information necessary to kill millions. You can't make people who kill millions "suffer to the degree of the suffering they have caused". It's impossible. Only god can do that. I am not saying society should play god, only save itself and not roll over and play did, which is what you are advocating.
As for McCain, there is no politician on the face of the American landscape whom I hold in lower esteem. I would gladly vote for Hillary --- or Pelosi, or even Kennedy --- who are all at least honest in their avowed communism, than I would pull the lever on that stinking traitor. Unless the lever was connected to an electric chair.
You obviously see this as a law-and-order issue. Did you vote for Kerry? That was his position in a nutshell.
This is war. This is not cops and robbers.
I'm amazed at your vitriol toward McCain, and at your definitions of both treason and communism. I think you were right a couple of replies back: on this one, never the twain shall meet.
vitriol towards McTraitor...
I haven't even begun.
Well this is actually a different thread, but I'm curious about that. He may not back Bush totally on foreign policy, but he sure isn't a socialist, unless I'm not reading the right newspapers. If anybody knows the evils of communism/socialism up close, he does. His own military service doesn't mitigate your feelings?
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