http://www.journalinquirer.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=17333580&BRD=985&PAG=461&dept_id=161556
Simmons says CIA doesn't use torture,
but defends vote on bill protecting agents
By Don Michak, Journal Inquirer
10/16/2006
U.S. Rep. Robert R. Simmons, R-2nd District, says he's
"not convince " that the CIA is torturing terror
suspects and that when he worked for the spy agency's
controversial "Phoenix" program during the Vietnam war
he didn't need to resort to torture.
"In my experience, torture doesn't work," the
three-term incumbent told the Journal Inquirer last
week. "And in the training that our military personnel
receive, and in the training that the CIA receives, we
do not focus on or condone or employ those practices.
And that's been the case for a long period of time."
Simmons' comments came as he defended his vote last
month approving the so-called detainee bill that
permits aggressive interrogation of suspected "enemy
combatants" in secret prisons.
The measure also extends special protection to CIA
officers from possible prosecution or lawsuits
stemming from their use of techniques like
"water-boarding," in which the person being
interrogated is made to feel like he is drowning, as
well as extended sleep deprivation and hypothermia.
Simmons responded to questions about the bill first by
noting that he was one of only two current members of
Congress "who have worked as interrogators or who have
done interrogations," saying the other lawmaker was
another former CIA operative, Rep. Joe Schwartz of
Michigan, a one-term Republican defeated in his
party's primary in August.
Simmons then recounted his experience as a CIA officer
in Tuy Hoa, a provincial capital in the former South
Vietnam, where he reportedly assisted a counterpart
from the South Vietnamese special police in
identifying civilians in the "Viet Cong
infrastructure" and penetrating their organization
with double agents.
He was describing part of a counter-insurgency program
code named "Phoenix," under which Special Forces were
dispatched to capture or assassinate Vietnamese
believed to be working with the Vietcong. U.S.
personnel relied on the South Vietnamese Army and
village chiefs to identify targets.
After much-publicized hearings in 1971, several
members of Congress who had traveled to Vietnam said
they believed torture was "a regularly accepted part
of interrogation" at centers like the one in Tuy Hoa
and that U.S. military and civilian personnel had
participated for years in "the deliberate denial of
due process of law to thousands of people held in
secret interrogation centers built with U.S. dollars."
Simmons denied any involvement in physical torture.
"In my experiences with the Province Interrogation
Center in the Phu Yen province and Tuy Hoa, back in
1970-72, we did not use 'water-boarding,"' he said.
"We did not use any kind of physical torture to
encourage cooperation.
"Now, the people that we took into the Province
Interrogation Center were provided to use by the South
Vietnamese government who were held by the South
Vietnamese government," he added. "And the South
Vietnamese government would often use standards that
are different from our standards. And part of our
success was that we could persuade the people who were
under our control that cooperation would in fact allow
them to stay for a longer period of time under our
custody, which was much more favorable to them than
being under the custody of the South Vietnamese
government.
"Now the challenge for us today is in dealing with a
somewhat different situation," he continued. "Do we
abandon those principles or not? I do not support
abandoning those principles, which were appropriate.
But in an effort to take this out of the domain of
executive orders and to put it in the domain of
legislation, we have worked on and attempted to craft
a piece of legislation that incorporates those
principles but at the same time recognizes that we
need a new kind of law for a new kind of war. We are
not involved in a conflict between sovereign states
and we're not involved in traditional law enforcement
issues. I think we've come up with an adequate
compromise and I think we can test that compromise in
the out-years as we move forward."
Asked if by voting to approve a bill that protected
government operatives who may use torture techniques
he was indirectly condoning such tactics, Simmons said
he was not.
"I'm not convinced these people are using them," he
said. "When I worked for the CIA as a case officer, I
was essentially told that if my operational activities
placed me at risk, I would be protected by my
organization. Now working overseas, abroad, in a
foreign environment, a hostile environment, is risky.
And when you take those risks, you like to think your
parent organization will take care of you.'"
Simmons cited a report on U.S. intelligence agencies
prepared by a national commission prior to the Sept.
11 terrorist attacks that he said had concluded that
government agents "operating in the counterterrorism
domain were not protected from liability lawsuits.
"I don't think that providing our CIA officers, our
FBI officers, engaged in these activities from
liability lawsuits is condoning behavior," he said. "I
don't see it that way. I think it's really a question
of extending to them some protection that we extend to
other public officials and other areas."
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