Hearing of the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Subcommitee of the House Judiciary Committee - From the Department of Justice to Guantanamo Bay: Administration Lawyers and Administration Interrogation Rules, Part V

Statement

REP. DARRELL ISSA (D-CA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

General, good to see you again.

MR. ASHCROFT: Thank you.

REP. ISSA: It is sort of amazing that, as a member of the Permanent Select Intelligence Committee, I've actually never heard any allegation of any detainee being denied food or water for a week. It's clear that we treated our hospital patients at times worse than we do people with al Qaeda.

MR. ASHCROFT: What's more, they were poking needles into me all the time. (Laughter.)

REP. ISSA: Clearly we would never do that either.

General Ashcroft, a lot of people here want to relive the events of Speaker Pelosi, Jane Harman and others being told about the enhanced interrogation and saying and doing nothing about it, not even sending an opposing letter or minority opinion in classified setting. And now they want to say this was heinous torture.

I think that is really the scandal that we're dealing with here today is that you can't be informed and then later on pretend like you're shocked. But having said that, I want to have something good come out of this experience. I, for one, as a member of the committee, have concerns that the current law that would describe in detail -- would require the president to avail this information in detail -- is often limited to just the speaker, majority and minority members of the HPSCI and SSCI.

From your experience -- and you have the luxury -- well, maybe it's not a luxury; you paid heavily for it. But you've been in so many parts of government, including obviously appreciating the House and Senate. Would it be good for the Congress to look at more broadly -- insisting that more broadly disseminated information to cleared personnel, both staff and members, so that we wouldn't have just "x" members on the Republican side and "x" members on the Democratic side that are a very small group. You know, and I have some sympathy for the fact that Speaker Pelosi may not have been the one who could determine what torture was, and she may have just seen this as less than she now sees it when more people know about it.

So my question to you is, should the House, for future administrations, begin looking at expanding the information pool? And would you agree that that is constitutionally with the advice and consent -- sometimes the consent the administration debates, but -- and this will be for both you and Mr. Dellinger -- the advice portion, shouldn't we expand that to make sure that we have a large enough pool in the future who were informed, who later on have to admit they were informed and therefore are part of the broad conspiracy, to the extent there is one?

MR. ASHCROFT: This is a very interesting idea, but it's got its pluses and minuses. With classified matters, when the safety of the nation is at stake, any time you expand the pool of individuals who are made aware of something, you elevate the risks of its disclosure. And the risks of disclosure can make a big difference for things like methods of interrogation, because people are trained to resist various methods of interrogation once they're known.

So -- and in all deference to both the House and the Senate -- and I served in the Senate; had the privilege of being there for six years -- you weren't here earlier when I said the easiest job in the world might be to be a spy in Washington, because information, classified and otherwise, just keeps pouring out of this place.

I remember one briefing, even before the Intelligence Committee -- and I won't get more specific than that -- that by the time the committee meeting was over, the press knew what was said in the meeting. It turns out that there had been a break taken midway through the meeting.

So we have this tension between the protection of America that's necessary with limiting information, and what would obviously, I think, be very helpful --

REP. ISSA: Let me give you a quick follow-up before the time expires. If we were, as a body, to take the measure of holding our own people accountable, make them eligible for criminal prosecution, those who get the select information, also make them do what the CIA and other groups do -- submit to polygraph -- if we were to discipline ourselves, would it then be reasonable to insist that we be treated at a peer level to the highest level of people within an administration? I know that's a tough hypothetical, but I ask it because this is something we would have to do.

MR. ASHCROFT: Well, I think that's a very -- it changes the equation if there could be more responsibility if it's successful. There is absolutely no reason, in my judgment, that we wouldn't want to have more buy-in by the Congress, the leadership of the country, in whatever we're doing. It's valuable. It gives you greater strength. It gives you the opportunity to be more successful. And I think that's where you're going. How do you provide a basis for sharing this understanding? And if it can be done without additional risks, I think it's something well worth considering.

REP. ISSA: Mr. Chairman, thank you for your indulgence. And hopefully we can work on a bipartisan basis to facilitate that happening in the next administration.

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