Should There Be Investigations Over Interrogation?

By Lauren Sher

The past few weeks have seen a debate grow over interrogation.  The question simmering right now — should there be an investigation into what Bush administration officials knew about the methods being used.  In other words, when officials approved techniques did they believe they were torture?  There was a good discussion of the topic yesterday on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."

MATTHEW DOWD: Well that’s the situation I think the President’s
in right now. And he wants to let this issue go. He doesn’t want to
deal with this issue. He knows its not helpful for his dealings with
Congress. He knows the American public doesn’t want to go back and do
this. But he’s got a big portion of his base that wants to punish
people. That’s really mad about the Bush administration, that’s really
mad about Iraq. He’s really mad about many things and wants people
punished. And so he’s having to deal with all these folks wanting
people punished and a Congress he wants to deal with. The other things
Democrats have to be aware of, when you see Democrats talk like this
like the police guy in Casablanca when he says I’m shocked there’s
gambling going on here. they knew full well exactly what was approved
and what was going on.

GEORGE WILL: Precisely, I think that when Speaker Pelosi said
she wanted a truth commission she better be prepared to be acquainted
with that commission. Because they are going to want to know how a 10
year member of the committee was shocked and surprised by that.

DONNA BRAZILE: Let the truth come out George, what’s wrong with
that. Let the truth set us free, so to speak and let’s hear from those
Democrats that were briefed on this issue. But this is something
larger, it’s about the rule of law.

GEORGE WILL: I agree with that, and I think that the Donna
Brazile Dick Cheney position is good one. (Laughter) Maybe we ought to
also in our transparency, sunlight, and all the rest we ought to
release the memos about what they actually learned and find out for
example, Mike McConnell former [National] Intelligence director, "we
have people alive and walking around today alive because this process
happened". George Tenet, former CIA director, "I know this process has
saved lives, I know we’ve disrupted plots."

Click here to watch the video.