To the Point

Torture and the Law

In Washington and around the world the uproar continues over Pentagon and Justice Department legal briefs that appear to justify torture. Meantime, Saudi kidnappers are threatening to treat an American hostage in the same way that Iraqi inmates were treated at the Abu Ghraib prison. While President Bush says he wanted treaties and laws to be followed, did others find ways to get around the Geneva conventions and Congressional statutes? Have excessive techniques been authorized? Are traditional policies being overturned? Should torture be banned under all circumstances, or does terrorism make the issue more complicated than it-s been before? Warren Olney goes in search of answers with experts in international law and war crimes, and former officials from the Reagan, Clinton and Bush, Sr. Justice and State Departments. Making News: Supreme Court Rules on Pledge of Allegiance Case The phrase -under God- will remain in the Pledge of Allegiance, at least for the foreseeable future, as the Supreme Court today overturned a Ninth Circuit Court ruling on the separation of Church and State. David Savage, who covers the court for the Los Angeles Times, says the split decision on procedural grounds found liberal and conservative justices trading ideological places. Reporter's Notebook: Clintons' Official Portraits Unveiled at the White House Bill and Hillary Clinton were back at the White House today for the official unveiling of their official portraits, the first to have been painted by an African American artist. He is Simmie Knox, who was born a sharecropper in Alabama. David Sanger, White House correspondent for the New York Times, says that today's event displayed not a hit of partisanship, as President Bush even put in a plug for Clinton's upcoming biography.