Bush stresses support for 'no torture' law

Financial Times
Jan. 27, 2006

President George W. Bush pledged on Thursday that no American "will be allowed to torture another human being anywhere in the world".

Responding to concerns about the decision to assert "the constitutional authority of the president" when he signed Senator John McCain's amendment last year that bans cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of detainees, Mr Bush said: "Make no mistake about it. The McCain amendment is one we strongly support and we'll make sure it's fully effective."

Mr Bush was speaking as part of a wide-ranging White House press conference, setting out key themes ahead of next week's State of the Union address. It forms part of a strategy in recent weeks of addressing criticism that Mr Bush had become trapped in a presidential bubble, shunning direct questioning and criticism.

His mood on Thursday was jocular and confident following an event on Tuesday in which he took nearly two hours of unrehearsed questions from an audience in Kansas, including one on whether he had watched a recent movie on gay cowboys.

National security, which will form the centrepiece of the speech next week, dominated the press conference. In the face of controversy over National Security Agency wiretapping of some telephone calls in and out of the US, Mr Bush resisted calls to craft a new law or modify the current law that regulates surveillance in the US, saying there was "no doubt in my mind" that he had acted legally.

Although he conceded that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which Congress passed in 1978 to regulate such surveillance, was outdated, he added: "My concern has always been that in an attempt to try to pass a law on something that's already legal, we'll show the enemy what we're doing."

Mr Bush has struggled to rebuild his popularity, which fell sharply last year. A Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll to be published today shows 54 per cent of Americans disapprove of his handling of the job. His ratings were particularly weak on the economy, with 59 per cent disapproving, and Iraq, with 56 per cent disapproving.

Mr Bush portrayed himself on Thursday as a leader keen to rise above partisan politics. He notably avoided taking aim directly at Democrats for their votes against the Supreme Court nominee, Samuel Alito.