John McCain, Rudy Giuliani dispute over waterboarding
Saturday, November 3rd 2007, 4:00 AM
Sen. John McCain (r.) at memorial service a Marine killed in Iraq.
WASHINGTON - Rudy Giuliani said Friday his 9/11 credentials trumped John McCain's personal experience with torture in judging whether waterboarding goes overboard.
McCain hit back, coming close to pinning the draft-dodger label on Giuliani, along with GOP rivals Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson, for avoiding Vietnam.
The McCain-Giuliani sniping grew out of the dispute over the interrogation technique known as waterboarding that has stalled attorney general nominee Michael Mukasey.
Giuliani told Bloomberg Television that he "can't say" he knows more about torture than McCain, who suffered severe beatings as a POW in Hanoi, "but I do know a lot about intensive questioning and intensive questioning techniques."
McCain "has never run a city, never run a state, never run a government," Giuliani added. "He has never been responsible as a mayor for the safety and security of millions of people, and he has never run a law enforcement agency, which I have done."
Without endorsing waterboarding, Giuliani said "intensive questioning works. If I didn't use intensive questioning, there would be a lot of Mafia guys running around New York right now, and crime would be a lot higher in New York than it is."
His campaign did not immediately explain Giuliani's experience with intensive questioning.
"Comparing a mock execution by drowning to 'intensive questioning' only serves to highlight Rudy Giuliani's disturbing lack of experience on matters of foreign policy," scoffed McCain spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker.
McCain insisted waterboarding - during which bound prisoners' faces are doused with water to simulate drowning - is torture.
"There's a clear division between those who have a military background and experience in these issues and people like Giuliani, Romney and Thompson who don't - who chose to do other things when this nation was fighting its wars," McCain said.
Giuliani, Romney and Thompson all had draft deferments during Vietnam. McCain said "anybody who has experience in warfare knows that waterboarding is by any definition torture and cannot be condoned."
A feisty Giuliani earlier called Democratic hopeful Barack Obama "naive and sad" for pledging to "engage in personal diplomacy" with Iran.
"This may be one of the few areas in which I agree with Hillary Clinton," he quipped.
Spokesman Bill Burton said Obama didn't need lectures from a man "who was naive and irresponsible enough to recommend someone [disgraced former Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik] with ties to convicted felons for Secretary of Homeland Security."
With News Wire Services
1 comment:
Please stay in the Senate and kick some more ass, especially Republicans
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