Claiming “[e]verybody supported” interrogation methods, Scarborough misrepresents Holder
On the April 27 edition of MSNBC’s
Morning Joe, host Joe Scarborough
asserted that while some Democrats currently favor criminal investigations for
Bush administration officials who authorized harsh interrogation methods, in
2002 “[e]verybody supported” using those methods. As an example, he quoted
Attorney General Eric Holder saying in a 2002 CNN interview: “One of the things
we clearly want to do with these prisoners is to have an ability to interrogate
them and find out what [their] future plans might be, where other cells are located;
under the Geneva Convention that you are really limited in the amount of
information you can elicit from people. It seems to me that given the way in
which they have conducted themselves, however, they are not, in fact, people
entitled to the protection of the Geneva Convention. … They’re not prisoners of
war.” On-screen text added that Holder also said,
“If, for instance, Mohammed Atta had survived the attack on the
World
Trade Center, would we now be calling him a
prisoner of war? I think not.” However, in a portion of the
interview that Scarborough did not quote, Holder went on to say that
U.S. policy should be that Al Qaeda detainees are
“entitled to be treated in a very humane way and almost consistent with
all of the dictates of the Geneva Convention.”
In 2006, the Supreme Court held that whether or not Al Qaeda
detainees held by the United
States are prisoners of war, they must be
afforded the protections of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention, which provides,
in part, that people to whom the article applies “shall in all circumstances be
treated humanely.”
From the January 28, 2002, edition of CNN’s American Morning:
PAULA ZAHN (host): The president
will be meeting with his National Security team this morning to talk about,
well, the apparent discord here. Give us a preview of what this discussion might
entail. When you have Secretary of State Powell saying, “Let’s abide by the
Geneva Convention,” and then folks on the other side, we are told, saying “Wait
a minute. If we hold them to that kind of status, then all they’ll be required
to give us is their name, rank and file number.”HOLDER: Yes, it seems to me this is
an argument that is really consequential. One of the things we clearly want to
do with these prisoners is to have an ability to interrogate them and find out
what their future plans might be, where other cells are located; under the
Geneva Convention that you are really limited in the amount of information that
you can elicit from people.It seems to me that given the way in
which they have conducted themselves, however, that they are not, in fact,
people entitled to the protection of the Geneva Convention. They are not
prisoners of war. If, for instance, Mohammed Atta had survived the attack on the
World
Trade Center, would we now be calling him a
prisoner of war? I think not. Should Zacarias Moussaoui be called a prisoner of
war? Again, I think not.And yet, I understand what Secretary
Powell is concerned about, and that is we’re going to be fighting this war with
people who are special forces, not people who are generally in uniform. And if
unfortunately they somehow become detained, we would want them to be treated in
an appropriate way consistent with the Geneva Convention.ZAHN: So is the secretary of state
walking a fine line here legally? He is not asking that the United
States declare these men as prisoners of war
right now. He’s just saying let’s abide by the Geneva Convention in the
meantime.HOLDER: Yes, and I think in a lot of
ways that makes sense. I think they clearly do not fit within the prescriptions
of the Geneva Convention. You have to remember that after World War II, as these
protocols were being developed, there seemed to be widespread agreement that
members of the French Resistance would not be considered prisoners of war if
they had been captured. That being the case, it’s hard for me to see how members
of al Qaeda could be considered prisoners of war.And yet, I understand Secretary
Powell’s concerns. We want to make sure that our forces, if captured in this or
some other conflict, are treated in a humane way. And I think ultimately that’s
really the decisive factor here. How are people, who are in our custody, going
to be treated? And those in Europe and other places who are concerned about the
treatment of al Qaeda members should come to Camp X-ray and see how the people are, in fact,
being treated.ZAHN: The administration this
morning playing down any discord among its team, but if you could, help us
understand how you reconcile this.HOLDER: Well, I think you’ve got
people on the one hand saying that these are folks who should not be treated
pursuant to the Geneva Convention, and at the same time, you’re going to have
people saying, “Well, you know, what does that mean for our forces down the
road? What does that mean for people who are going to be doing what we tell them
to do throughout the course of this conflict, which is worldwide and which is
going to be taking years to ultimately resolve?”I can understand the tensions that
exist, but I think the way to resolve it is, in fact, the way Secretary Powell
has proposed, which is to say these are not people who are prisoners of war as
that has been defined, but who are entitled to, in our own interests, entitled
to be treated in a very humane way and almost consistent with all of the
dictates of the Geneva Convention.
From the April 27 edition of MSNBC’s
Morning
Joe:
MIKA BRZEZINSKI (co-host): Well,
Harold [Ford Jr.] talks about how there’s military goals and other strategic
goals that this issue doesn’t serve by dredging it up. Politically, I think is
the biggest loss for the Democrats, if they go there with this.SCARBOROUGH: Well, and
that’s a problem –BRZEZINSKI: I don’t see a good
option coming out.SCARBOROUGH: You know,
Mika, what we’ve been saying for the past week here is, regardless of whether
you think it’s moral or not –BRZEZINSKI: That is correct.
SCARBOROUGH: — everybody was in on
this in official Washington. Everybody supported it. We’re
hearing arguments in 2009 we didn’t hear in 2002. Like, for instance, Eric
Holder, the man that Robert Gibbs said would be making the decision on whether
this is torture or not — let me read you what Eric Holder said in 2002, our
attorney general. In 2002, he said: “One of the things we clearly want to do
with these prisoners is to have an ability to interrogate them and find out what future plans might be, where
other cells are located; under the Geneva Convention that you are really limited
in the amount of information you can elicit from people. It seems to me that
given the way in which they have conducted themselves, however, they are not, in
fact, people entitled to the protection of the Geneva Convention.” He goes
–BRZEZINSKI: “They’re not prisoners
of war” — this is to CNN.SCARBOROUGH: Right.
“They’re not prisoners of war.”BRZEZINSKI: “If for instance,
Mohamed Atta” –SCARBOROUGH: Then he
goes on and says, “If we’d caught Mohamed Atta, we’d be now in the position” –
this, of course, before we track down –BRZEZINSKI:
Yeah.SCARBOROUGH: — Khalid
Shaikh Mohammed, everybody else.This is when, Pat, we were operating
in, of course, what’s called the fog of war. And again, on a clear, bright,
sunny day in the spring of 2009, we suddenly have clarity and we’ve refound our
moral footing, and we now want to go back and punish everybody in 2002 that was
doing exactly what America told them to do.PAT BUCHANAN (MSNBC political
analyst): Well –SCARBOROUGH: And what
they expected our leaders to do.BUCHANAN: Exactly. Well, they –
look, Holder’s dead right. These aren’t prisoners of war. They don’t fight in
–SCARBOROUGH: Well,
liberals don’t say that today.BUCHANAN: Well, they attack civilian
targets. If you do that –SCARBOROUGH: We — no,
no, no, no, no. In 2009, Pat, liberals will tell you they want Bush and Cheney
prosecuted. They will tell you that we violated the Geneva Conventions.BUCHANAN: Well, let me tell you, Joe
–SCARBOROUGH: You got an
attorney general, though, in 2002, saying that this wasn’t.BUCHANAN: Exactly. But let me tell
you, Obama is trying to walk this cat back. You’ve got Gibbs out there saying
it’s all up to Holder now. And Obama, of course, said don’t prosecute the lower
– people lower down. He can’t say that.[Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid
[D-NV] said no more commissions, no boards, no tribunals, leave this with
[Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick] Leahy [D-VT] or the intelligence
committee. But, the intelligence committee can draw out a lot of this stuff and
then send it over to Justice, and then Holder has got to make the call. But, as
you say, Joe, Holder has already made the call from his own words.