Sunday, November 13, 2005; B06
Republican congressional leaders, by demanding a bicameral investigation into the alleged leak of classified information about the secret CIA prisons [front page, Nov. 9], are like the thief who, while robbing a house, was bitten by a watchdog -- and then indignantly complained to the police about it.
What Congress should be investigating is not the disclosure, but what was disclosed: A contemporary gulag in which detainees languish indefinitely, subject to torture and unable to contest the accusations against them in a court of law. That last injustice would be formalized by rescinding detainees' habeas corpus rights under an amendment to the defense appropriations bill that was proposed by Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and approved Thursday by the Senate.
Congress also would be well advised to investigate how it let this state of affairs, whereby the United States has become synonymous with human rights violations and an attitude toward torture that is at best ambiguous, come about.
DEREK FROST
Bethesda