奧巴馬拒絕參與CIA酷刑辯論

 

奧巴馬拒絕參與CIA酷刑辯論

WASHINGTON — The C.I.A. maintains that the brutal interrogation techniques it used on terrorism suspects a decade ago worked. The Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that they did not. And on that, at least, President Obama is not taking sides.

華盛頓——中央情報(bào)局(CIA)堅(jiān)持認(rèn)為，10年前對恐怖主義嫌疑人使用的殘酷審訊手法是有效的。參議院情報(bào)委員會(huì)(Senate Intelligence Committee)的結(jié)論則是這些手段無效。至少在這個(gè)問題上，奧巴馬總統(tǒng)沒有站隊(duì)。

Even as Mr. Obama repeated his belief that the techniques constituted torture and betrayed American values, he declined to address the fundamental question raised by the report, which the committee released on Tuesday: Did they produce meaningful intelligence to stop terrorist attacks, or did the C.I.A. mislead the White House and the public about their effectiveness?

奧巴馬重申了他的看法，即這些審訊技巧構(gòu)成了虐待，是違背美國價(jià)值觀的，但是他拒絕回應(yīng)委員會(huì)周二發(fā)布的報(bào)告提出的一個(gè)根本問題：這些手段是否帶來了對阻止恐怖襲擊有幫助的情報(bào)，或者說，CIA在有效性方面是否對白宮和公眾進(jìn)行了誤導(dǎo)?

That debate, after all, has left Mr. Obama facing an uncomfortable choice between two allies: the close adviser and former aide he installed as director of the C.I.A. versus his fellow Democrats who control the Senate committee and the liberal base that backs their findings.

最重要的是，這場爭論讓奧巴馬不得不尷尬地要在盟友之間做出抉擇：一邊是過從甚密的顧問，被他任命為CIA局長的前助手，另一方是控制參議院委員會(huì)的民主黨同僚，以及對該報(bào)告發(fā)現(xiàn)持支持態(tài)度的自由派人士。

“We are not going to engage in this debate,” said a senior administration official close to Mr. Obama who briefed reporters under ground rules that did not allow him to be identified.

“我們不打算參與這場爭論，”一位與奧巴馬關(guān)系密切的高級(jí)政府官員稱，這位官員向記者介紹了情況，但前提條件是不能在報(bào)道中透露他的身份。

The written statement Mr. Obama released in response to the report tried to straddle that divide. He opened by expressing appreciation to C.I.A. employees as “patriots” to whom “we owe a debt of gratitude” for trying to protect the country after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Then he judged that the methods they used in doing so “did significant damage to America’s standing in the world.”

在就參議院報(bào)告做出的書面聲明中，奧巴馬試圖保持一種跨越分歧的姿態(tài)。他先是表達(dá)了對“忠于祖國的”CIA雇員們的敬意，稱他們在2001年9月 11日的襲擊后奮力保衛(wèi)這個(gè)國家，“我們對他們感激不盡”。然而他接著表示，他們在保衛(wèi)國家的過程中使用的方法，“對美國的國際聲譽(yù)構(gòu)成了嚴(yán)重?fù)p害。”

And finally, Mr. Obama asked the nation to stop fighting about what happened so many years ago before he took office. “Rather than another reason to refight old arguments,” he said, “I hope that today’s report can help us leave these techniques where they belong — in the past.”

最后，奧巴馬請求國民不要再為他上任幾年前的事爭吵。“我希望，與其讓這份報(bào)告成為重啟一場舊爭論的理由，不如讓它幫助我們，把這些手法留在它們應(yīng)該待的地方——過去。”

Mr. Obama has struggled to find balance on this issue since taking office nearly six years ago. He made one of his first acts as president signing an order that banned the use of torture by the C.I.A. But he resisted pressure from activists to hold anyone accountable for the waterboarding of suspects.

自從六年前入主白宮以來，奧巴馬一直在苦苦尋找這個(gè)問題的平衡點(diǎn)。在上任之初的一些舉措中包括簽署一項(xiàng)命令，禁止CIA使用酷刑。但是他頂住了活動(dòng)人士的壓力，在對嫌疑人進(jìn)行水刑逼供一事上沒有追究任何人的責(zé)任。

The Justice Department under Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. re-examined cases of prisoner abuse that were previously closed under President George W. Bush, but it did not prosecute anyone. Mr. Obama rejected the creation of a “truth commission” proposed by Democrats like Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont. To this day, the president has resisted releasing photographs of harsh treatment of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan, and his White House backed up the C.I.A. in seeking redactions of the Senate report.

小埃里克·H·霍爾德(Eric H. Holder Jr.)執(zhí)掌下的司法部(Justice Department)對喬治·W·布什(George W. Bush)總統(tǒng)在任時(shí)已經(jīng)完結(jié)的虐囚案進(jìn)行了重新核審，但沒有起訴任何人。奧巴馬否決了佛蒙特州參議員帕特里克·J·萊希(Patrick J. Leahy)等民主黨人設(shè)立“真相委員會(huì)”的提議。直到今天，總統(tǒng)還是拒絕公布伊拉克和阿富汗被關(guān)押人員遭粗暴對待的照片，他的白宮在就參議院報(bào)告涂黑的磋商中是支持CIA的。

As a president who receives regular briefings on terrorist threats and is responsible for stopping them, Mr. Obama sees the situation differently than he did as a candidate denouncing the incumbent of the other party. In his statement on Tuesday, Mr. Obama not only did not condemn Mr. Bush for authorizing the techniques, but he also sounded a note of empathy.

作為總統(tǒng)，奧巴馬會(huì)定期聽取恐怖主義威脅的匯報(bào)，并要負(fù)責(zé)遏制這些威脅，他對情勢的看法已經(jīng)今非昔比，不能再像一個(gè)候選人那樣去譴責(zé)對方政黨的在任者。在周二的聲明中，奧巴馬不但沒有指責(zé)布什授權(quán)使用這些手法，反而流露出同情的口氣。

“In the years after 9/11, with legitimate fears of further attacks and with the responsibility to prevent more catastrophic loss of life, the previous administration faced agonizing choices about how to pursue Al Qaeda and prevent additional terrorist attacks against our country,” he said.

“在9·11發(fā)生后的一年里，面對進(jìn)一步襲擊的真切威脅，前任政府肩負(fù)避免生靈涂炭的事件再度發(fā)生的重任，關(guān)于如何追查基地組織，以及制止更多的恐怖分子襲擊我們的國家，他們要做出痛苦的抉擇，”他說。

A major influence has been John O. Brennan, a career C.I.A. officer who has been at his side since the start of his presidency, first as his White House counterterrorism adviser and now as his C.I.A. director.

一個(gè)主要的影響來自CIA官員約翰·O·布倫南(John O. Brennan)，他從最初就一直輔佐奧巴馬總統(tǒng)，先是任白宮反恐顧問，而后是CIA局長。

Both Mr. Brennan and the president’s first C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, have taken the position, contrary to critics, that the interrogations did yield useful intelligence at points but were nonetheless wrong and that Mr. Obama was right to ban them.

布倫南和奧巴馬的第一任CIA局長利昂·E·帕內(nèi)塔(Leon E. Panetta)都選擇了和批評者相對立的立場，稱通過審訊的確得到了有用的情報(bào)，盡管這樣做依然是錯(cuò)的，而奧巴馬發(fā)布禁令則是正確的。

Mr. Brennan did not back down on that position with the release of the committee report.

布倫南在委員會(huì)報(bào)告公布后仍未改變立場。

“Our review indicates that interrogations of detainees on whom E.I.T.s were used did produce intelligence that helped thwart attack plans, capture terrorists and save lives,” he said in a statement on Tuesday, referring to enhanced interrogation techniques. “The intelligence gained from the program was critical to our understanding of Al Qaeda and continues to inform our counterterrorism efforts to this day.”

“我們的核查顯示，在審訊中對在押人員使用EIT之后，的確能得到有助于阻撓襲擊計(jì)劃、抓捕恐怖分子和拯救生命的情報(bào)，”他在周二的一份聲明中說，此處的EIT即加強(qiáng)型審訊技巧。“該項(xiàng)目獲取的情報(bào)，對我們了解基地組織是至關(guān)重要的，對我們今天的反恐行動(dòng)依然有幫助。”

Mr. Brennan acknowledged that the program “had shortcomings and that the agency made mistakes,” especially because the C.I.A. was unprepared for its new post-Sept. 11 role. But he rejected the assertion that the agency deliberately deceived the public about the efficacy of the interrogations.

布倫南承認(rèn)，該項(xiàng)目“存在缺點(diǎn)，CIA犯了錯(cuò)誤，”這主要是因?yàn)?，CIA還沒有準(zhǔn)備好接受自己9·11事件后的新角色。但是，他駁斥了CIA曾就審訊效果蓄意欺騙公眾的說法。

Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, the Democratic chairwoman of the intelligence committee, said the program was not just morally wrong but ineffective. The committee’s report argues that information gleaned from the interrogations was often false, duplicative or could have been obtained in other ways.

情報(bào)委員會(huì)主席、加利福尼亞州民主黨參議員戴安·范斯坦(Dianne Feinstein)稱，該項(xiàng)目不僅有違道義，而且還沒有什么效果。委員會(huì)的報(bào)告辯稱，從審訊中收集的信息往往并不屬實(shí)，而且存在重復(fù)，或者可以通過其他途徑來獲得。

“It finds that coercive interrogation techniques did not produce the vital, otherwise unavailable intelligence the C.I.A. has claimed,” she said.

她說，“報(bào)告認(rèn)為，強(qiáng)制性審訊手段并沒有獲得那些至關(guān)重要的，CIA所說的無法通過其他途徑來獲得的情報(bào)。”

On Tuesday, he seemed at first to avoid such a straightforward assertion again. His written statement noted he had “unequivocally banned torture” but did not say the United States had actually committed torture. In discussing what had happened under his predecessor, Mr. Obama used phrases like “harsh methods” and even “enhanced interrogation techniques,” the phrase preferred by Mr. Bush and the C.I.A.

周二，總統(tǒng)剛開始似乎又在回避這種簡單直白的說法。他的書面聲明指出，他已經(jīng)“明確禁止酷刑”，但并未表示美國其實(shí)曾使用酷刑。在討論他前任的執(zhí)政過程中所發(fā)生的事情時(shí)，奧巴馬使用了“嚴(yán)厲的方式”等說法，甚至還提到了布什和CIA比較喜歡的“加強(qiáng)型審訊技巧”。

Aides quickly said that Mr. Obama was not trying to hedge and that when the president sat down with José Díaz-Balart from Telemundo for an interview several hours later, he used a more direct formulation.

助手迅速表示，奧巴馬并未嘗試回避問題，數(shù)小時(shí)后，在坐下來接受Telemundo的若澤·迪亞茲-巴拉特(José Díaz-Balart)的采訪時(shí)，他使用了更直接的表述。

“Some of the tactics written about in the Senate intelligence report were brutal, and as I’ve said before, constituted torture in my mind,” Mr. Obama said.

奧巴馬說，“參議院情報(bào)報(bào)告中寫到的一些手段比較殘酷，正如我此前所說，我認(rèn)為已經(jīng)構(gòu)成了酷刑。”