Senator Dick Durbin (IL)
- Durbin's full speech, 14 June 2005, in the Senate
- "If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others -- that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners."
- Comments on Gitmo, 15 June 2005
- Statement on Previous Comments, 17 June 2005
- From Spike O'Dell Interview, WGN 720, Chicago, 17 June 2005 (Via Hugh Hewitt).
- Q. No regrets on the statements you made?
Durbin: No, I don't, and I'll tell you why. I went to the floor and read a memo from the FBI. This isn't something I made up. It was a memo that was unclassified, was disclosed, and I'm going to take, if I can ask you to bear with me, I'm going to read the highlights of it because it really sets the stage for my comments....[reads investigator memo] It goes on and on and on. I read this into the record because there has been a lot of controversy about what is happening in Guantanamo Bay where we have held 500 to 700 people for some times up to two and a half years with no charges. The Supreme Court has ruled that this Administration's new interrogation policy under Secretary Rumsfeld violates basic rights and I said if I just read this to you and you didn't know where it came from, where would you think this could happen? In the Nazi regime, in the soviet regime? Sadly it happened under Americans. Now the point I was trying to make is, we have departed from standards of conduct which presidents of both parties have played by for over 50 years, and we shouldn't be doing this.... - ---
- Q. I guess one of the reasons people are having such a hard time with this one, is when comparisons are made and you use names like Nazis and Soviet gulags, when you are talking Nazis there were what, 9 million people killed in the camps there. The gulags had about 3 million and so forth. And I know Gitmo is not the Holiday Inn down there, but I don't think anyone has died down there, have they?
Durbin: No, that's true. In all fairness, they did not. But I don't believe we were dealing with deaths at Abu Ghraib either. We were dealing with a situation where when people saw the digital camera photographs, they said "My God! Americans should not be involved in that kind of conducrt." Now I will not demean or diminish the terrible atrocities that were commtted by the Soviets and the Nazis. The points I was, the point I was trying to make there was, if I just read this to you and say "What kind of country, what kind of governemtn would do that," and you'd think of some of the most repressive regimes in history. Sadly this FBI report says its being done by our government. I don't know who in our government. But it should stop....
Commentary (UPDATED 19 June):
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