Expressing concerns about attorney general-designate Alberto Gonzales’ commitment to due process and the rule of law, a coalition of some 50 civil rights and labor groups called Wednesday for the Senate Judiciary Committee to conduct a "searching and thorough review" of the nominee’s record and positions in confirmation hearings that begin Thursday.
In a three-page letter to Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, and the ranking Democrat, Patrick Leahy, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR) also urged the senators to "determine whether and to what extent Mr. Gonzales plans to continue the policies" adopted by outgoing Attorney General John Ashcroft, whose record in office is "troubling," especially on matters relating to civil rights and liberties.
The letter urged "the Committee [to] determine whether Mr. Gonzales shares Mr. Ashcroft’s extremist view – most recently expressed in comments made before the Federalist society – that federal judges’can put at risk the very security of our nation’ simply by exercising their responsibility to review the constitutional limits of administration powers in the campaign against terrorism." It was signed by leaders of the National Council of Churches, the AFL-CIO, the National Council of Jewish Women, and dozens of other groups.
The letter was sent on the eve of scheduled hearings that are expected to focus mainly on Gonzales’ role in the preparation and authorization of a series of memos on the Bush administration’s policy on the detention, treatment, and interrogation of prisoners captured by U.S. forces in the "war on terrorism."
In a lengthy investigative article published by the Washington Post Wednesday, Gonzales, who served as President George W. Bush’s White House counsel since 2001, is depicted as playing a somewhat passive role in the inter-agency process that led to the adoption of the most controversial policies.
They include the decision to exempt terrorist suspects from protections guaranteed by the 1949 Geneva Conventions; the authorization of interrogation methods that human rights experts consider abusive; and the assertion that the commander-in-chief authority of the president permitted him to override U.S. laws and the Constitution.
In the Post‘s account, Gonzales – whose previous experience was confined to issues of domestic law – is seen as relying heavily on a group of aggressive lawyers associated with the far-right Federalist Society, particularly Vice President Dick Cheney’s counsel, David Addington, on national security issues.
According to the Post, Gonzales even went along with their suggestions that State Department attorneys and career military lawyers – who are known to disagree on key issues, such as compliance with the Geneva Conventions – be excluded from critical interagency meetings.
In the view of many of the administration’s critics, the resulting decisions not only deviated sharply from traditional U.S. practice and laws, but they also resulted eventually in the notorious abuses at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, as well as other cases of abuse – and even torture – in Afghanistan and the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Some retired military officers and veterans have contended that the policies also undermined the "war on terror" by alienating public opinion abroad, and even put at risk U.S. soldiers who may fall into the hands of enemy forces.
"We want American service members who are captured to be protected from torture under international and U.S. laws," said Charles Sheehan-Miles, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense and a 1991 Gulf War veteran. Mr. Sheehan-Miles – and some 3,500 veterans and military family members – signed a letter released here Wednesday, opposing Gonzales’ confirmation.
"Under the arguments put forth by Alberto Gonzales, our own servicemen and women would be subject to torture and we would have no recourse to the Geneva Conventions," he told reporters.
Given the gravity of harm caused by the policies and the fact that only low-level soldiers have so far been punished for known abuses, a number of groups, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Human Rights First, and the American Bar Association, have repeatedly called on the administration to back the creation of an independent commission of inquiry to investigate all aspects of U.S. detention and interrogation policies, including their formulation.
In a statement Wednesday, the Amnesty’s U.S. section (AIUSA) called on Gonzales to explicitly endorse such a commission in his testimony. "Pronouncements of his opposition to torture will ring hollow if not accompanied by a commitment to ensure that no one escapes accountability for ordering or approving the infliction of torture," said AIUSA director William Schulz.
While the civil rights groups said Gonzales’ decisions and recommendations on the treatment of detainees should indeed be a major focus of the hearings, they also expressed concern about his involvement in shaping the overall civil rights record of the administration – and especially the Justice Department’s alleged failure to fully enforce laws against racial profiling, sex discrimination, and other measures to ensure equal rights.
In addition, the groups encouraged the Committee to question Gonzales closely on his position on what they called "harsh and ineffective anti-immigrant policies imposed in recent years that deny due process and infringe on basic rights against detention without charge."
The roundup, detention, and deportation of hundreds of male immigrants from the Arab world and South Asia carried out by the federal government after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks – as well as detentions and surveillance measures authorized by the USA PATRIOT Act – have been widely condemned by human rights and immigrant activists.
In its letter, LCCR also expressed concern that the administration had failed to disclose to the Committee a number of critical documents requested by the lawmakers that would shed more light on Gonzales’ involvement in shaping policy in the "war against terrorism."
"All of the these documents should be disclosed and reviewed by the Committee before the confirmation hearings, and the president should waive any purported claims of privilege for these documents," the letter stated.
Other signatories to the letter include the International League for Human Rights, the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium, the American Civil Liberties Union, Citizens for Global Solutions, and the Open Society Policy Center.
(OneWorld)
