During a Senate debate last week, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) reached for the most powerful weapon in any argument over national security for nearly the last three years.
The issue was a proposal from Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) to bar private contractors from interrogating military prisoners. Dodd played his high card by arguing that such a ban could reduce the odds of another black eye for America such as the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. But Sessions trumped him by suggesting the ban might increase the chances of another terrorist attack such as Sept. 11.
What if, Sessions asked, "the very best interrogator in the United States of America" was not a military officer but a retired detective who had "the ability to [obtain] information that can save thousands of lives" through skilled interrogation? Could America really deny itself an asset that might help prevent another terrorist attack?
Partly because of that argument, the Senate on Wednesday rejected Dodd's amendment. That was little surprise. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the best way to build support for any national security initiative has been to portray it as a new line of defense against a repeat of that tragic day.
That was the justification for the Senate passage of the Patriot Act, which greatly expanded Washington's ability to monitor suspected terrorists. Those arguments drove the creation of the Department of Homeland Security a year later.
The same logic turns up more explicitly in memos from Justice and Defense department attorneys before the Abu Ghraib scandal loosening the limits on acceptable coercion during interrogation.
Writing to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on March 6, 2003, top Pentagon lawyers acknowledged that "even in war, limits to the use and extent of force apply." But citing Justice Department memos, they concluded "the nation's right to self-defense has been triggered" by the Sept. 11 attacks. And that meant harm to those under interrogation could be justified "to prevent further attacks on the United States by the Al Qaeda terrorist network."
This argument, of course, made its most dramatic appearance in President Bush's drive to win support for war with Iraq. The report last week from the staff of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks rekindled the debate over whether Bush misled the nation before the war about the extent of the links between Al Qaeda and Iraq.
