Political Quotes

“I rise to introduce the Limitations on Interrogation Techniques Act of 2009. This bill is identical to one I introduced last summer, along with Senators Hatch, Chambliss, Burr, and Warner. Last week, my colleague and good friend on the Intelligence Committee, Senator Feinstein, introduced a bill that, among other things, requires all intelligence interrogations to be conducted only in accordance with the Army Field Manual. The Army Field Manual was designed to monitor and to describe the techniques which could be used by the many thousands and tens of thousands of Army personnel who might be engaged in interrogating people caught in field operations. Unfortunately, I believe this is the wrong approach. First, the Army Field Manual is a document that can be changed by the Secretary of the Army without ever coming back to Congress. It was meant to deal with Army personnel--the fine men and women of the Army. The next problem is that by setting legislative standards according to a departmental policy manual, Congress, in effect, would be ceding our legislative function to the Secretary of the Army. Even more importantly, I don't believe we should have a one-size-fits-all approach when we are talking about interrogations that would be conducted by the military or the FBI over here or the CIA over here and a host of other different agencies, all with different missions and priorities.”