Cheney Shooting Justified: Attorney General Gonzales
A Disassociated Press Report, February 17, 2006, Washington, D.C.
By Eric Mader
U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales today argued that Vice-President
Dick Cheney's accidental shooting of Harry Whittington while quail hunting was
legally justified. The remarks
were made during an appearance on Fox News network.
Gonzales pointed out the importance of executive authority in wartime
and the dangers to Americans in this time of "rampant and surprise terrorist
attacks."
"Cheney's quick decision to pull the trigger was entirely justified
under the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force," Gonzales said.
The Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) was enacted by Congress
in order to give the Bush administration the powers it needed to respond to the
al Qaeda threat.
U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales explains the legal basis
of the vice-president's recent shooting accident.
"In time of war our Constitution gives the executive branch certain
inalienable rights," Gonzales said.
"One of these rights is to do whatever it likes to whomever it likes for
whatever reason it likes. Shooting
people is certainly not out of the legal range."
Gonzales pointed out that the shooting of Whittington occurred in an
ambiguous situation where the vice-president could have suspected a possible
terrorist attack.
"Whittington loomed toward the vice-president from a gully," Gonzales
said. "The vice-president's vision
wasn't clear because he was looking into the sun, and Whittington was foolishly
wearing orange. Of course he shot
him in the face. What else could
he do?"
Gonzales explained that bright orange was the color of uniforms worn by
detainees at the US detention center in Guantanamo.
"The vice-president's reflexes were quick," he said. "This could have been an illegal combatant escaped from Guantanamo and trying to assassinate him."
Asked if it was Whittington's wearing orange that made the shooting
justified, Gonzales clarified: "Orange is not the main point. Even if Whittington weren't wearing
orange, the shooting would be justified under the AUMF. The point is that under AUMF anything
is justified. Anything at all."
Re: Abu Gonzales,
from Wikipedia:
When Bush was sworn in as President of the United States in 2001
, he appointed Gonzales White House Counsel. . . .
Gonzales authored a controversial memo in January of 2002 that
explored whether Article III of the Geneva Convention even applied to Al Qaeda
and Taliban fighters captured in Afghanistan and held in concentration
facilities around the world, including Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. . .
.
A secret 2002 Justice Department memorandum cleared by Gonzales
argued that laws prohibiting torture do "not apply to the president's
detention and interrogation of enemy combatants," and that the pain caused
by interrogation must include "injury such as death, organ failure, or
serious impairment of body functions--in order to constitute torture."
In 2004, when this memo was leaked to the press,
Gonzales said about the memo in Senate confirmation hearings that "...I
don't recall today whether or not I was in agreement with all of the analysis,
but I don't have a disagreement with the conclusions then reached by the
department." This indicates that, despite the Bush administration's
withdrawal from the memo, Gonzales still believes that the Justice Department
was correct in its reasoning about torture.
Gonzales faced further controversy when he authored the
Presidential Order which authorized the use of military tribunals to try
terrorist suspects. He fought with Congress to keep vice-president Dick Cheney's
Energy task force documents from being reviewed. Gonzales was also an early
advocate of the controversial USA PATRIOT Act. He is also accused of being
involved in the decision to allow foreign combatants in U.S. custody to be
deported to nations that allow torture, in order to extract further information
from them; despite the mounting evidence, he denies that he has ever supported
this measure.
. . . On November 10, 2004, it was announced that [Gonzales] would be nominated to replace United States Attorney General John Ashcroft for Bush's second term.
Taken from the article at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Gonzales
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