Bush sees NATO backing missile defense
Foreign Desk Report

BUCHAREST (Romania)—President Bush expressed confidence Wednesday that NATO will bolster its combat forces in Afghanistan and endorse a missile defense system for Europe that Russia has opposed. “I’m optimistic that this is a going to be a very successful summit,” Bush said, sitting alongside NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer hours before the 26-nation military alliance opened three days of meetings with a leaders’ dinner.
The summit has been troubled by divisions, most notably opposition from France and Germany to giving Ukraine and Georgia a plan for eventually joining NATO. Bush indicated that was an open question because any NATO member can block it. “We’ll see,” he said, saying one country was still an issue.
Bush has been pushing NATO countries to commit more troops to the 47,000-strong NATO force in Afghanistan. At least 10 countries, including France, Germany, Norway and Poland, have announced they would do so, but Bush would like to see more. “I feel good about what I’m hearing from my fellow leaders about their desire to support Afghanistan,” the president said. “I think if tomorrow we get clarification on troop support ... the people of Afghanistan are going to be more than grateful.” He did not mention any specific numbers of additional troops.
The U.S. is the biggest contributor of troops in Afghanistan, with 17,000 in the NATO-led force and 14,000 in a U.S.-led contingent in eastern Afghanistan that trains Afghan forces and hunts al-Qaida fighters. The U.S. presence is set to go up by 3,500 Marines, most of them dedicated to the NATO mission. Bush has spent months trying to persuade Russia that it has nothing to fear from a missile defense shield in Europe, based in Poland and the Czech Republic.
He said “it looks like to me that the agreement is coming together” within NATO at least to support a defensive system. The president is to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday in the resort city of Sochi, and the White House has held out hopes of an agreement easing Russia’s opposition to a missile shield. Putin, Bush said, should “welcome NATO because it is a group of nations dedicated to peace.”
De Hoop Scheffer told Bush, “I can share and echo your optimism.” He said NATO would “take a clear position on missile defense.” The NATO chief also said the alliance would publish a so-called “vision statement” about expanding its traditional role “the front lines in the fight against terrorism.”
De Hoop Scheffer was optimistic about adding new members to NATO. Croatia, Albania and Macedonia are hoping to get invitations this week, although Greece may block Macedonia. Taking note of the dispute over Ukraine’s hopes for eventual membership, de Hoop Scheffer said, “I think this can never be a question of whether ... I think the door should be open.” But he did not say whether Ukraine’s chance to start the process, along with Georgia, would come now or have to wait.
The Pentagon made public a now-defunct legal memo that approved the use of harsh interrogation techniques against terror suspects, saying that President Bush’s wartime authority trumps any international ban on torture. The Justice Department memo, dated March 14, 2003, outlines legal justification for military interrogators to use harsh tactics against al-Qaida and Taliban detainees overseas — so long as they did not specifically intend to torture their captives.
Even so, the memo noted, the president’s wartime power as commander in chief would not be limited by the U.N. treaties against torture. “Our previous opinions make clear that customary international law is not federal law and that the president is free to override it at his discretion,” said the memo written by John Yoo, who was then deputy assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel. The memo also offered a defense in case any interrogator was charged with violating U.S. or international laws.
“Finally, even if the criminal prohibitions outlined above applied, and an interrogation method might violate those prohibitions, necessity or self-defense could provide justifications for any criminal liability,” the memo concluded. The memo was rescinded in December 2003, a mere nine months after Yoo sent it to the Pentagon’s top lawyer, William J. Haynes. Though its existence has been known for years, its release Tuesday marked the first time its contents in full have been made public.
Haynes, the Defense Department’s longest-serving general counsel, resigned in late February to return to the private sector. He has been hotly criticized for his role in crafting Bush administration policies for detaining and trying suspected terrorists that some argue led to prisoner abuses at the detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.