‘What Americans Stand For’

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham has played a key role in opposing President Bush’s plan to authorize military tribunals for terror suspects and reinterpret the Geneva Conventions to permit some aggressive interrogation techniques. As a member of the Senate’s Armed Services’ Committee, Graham and two other Republicans—John McCain and committee chairman John Warner—broke ranks with their party to reject the White House’s detainee bill last week. NEWSWEEK’s Michael Isikoff spoke to Graham, a former military lawyer, about the legislative battle—and why he feels so strongly about the issue. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: How do you see the military commission and torture issues playing out? Is the president going to get the legislation he wants?

Lindsey Graham: This idea of trying somebody where they don’t get [to see] the evidence against them, but the jury does—that’s dead. That’s going nowhere ...

Why are you so against it?

Let me give you the best example. What if a CIA paramilitary guy is caught in Iran, trying to find out about the Iranian [nuclear] program? What would our response be if the Iranian government put them on trial as a war criminal? And had a procedure where the prosecutor could give to the jury or the judge a file marked “secret” and never provide that to the accused? We would scream bloody murder ... We would go crazy.

What do you make of the president’s comments at [last Friday’s] news conference [in which he threatened to terminate the CIA interrogation program if the White House legislation doesn’t pass.] He seemed pretty worked up about this.