Back in April, when Arizona’s enacted the nation’s harshest immigration law, several groups banded together to organize a boycott campaign against the state. Today, the Center for American Progress, along with the consulting firm Elliott D. Pollack & Company, released a report surveying the economic impact of the boycott. The report’s findings show that the boycott has in fact had a significant impact on the state’s convention industry:

Arizona’s Hotel and Lodging Association publicly reported a combined loss of $15 million in lodging revenue due to meeting cancellations just four months after the bill’s passage. Our extensive research estimates that the actual lost lodging revenue from these cancellations is at least three times that amount: $45 million. That estimate provides a basis for calculating other losses in visitor spending. Analyzing average food and beverage, entertainment, in-town transportation, and retail sales brings the combined loss of estimated conference attendee spending up to a startling $141 million.

This significant hit to direct visitor spending could not come at a worse economic time for Arizona and yet these numbers still vastly understate the overall consequences of these cancellations for the state’s economy. Cancelled meetings and conferences over the next two to three years would have supported nearly 2,800 jobs. The cancellations will trigger more than a quarter billion dollars in lost economic output and more than $86 million in lost wages.

The damage doesn’t end there. The study also noted that “large convention bookings typically occur several years in advance, and many organizations and associations will be making booking decisions over the course of the next year.” Regardless of the position taken by those entities on immigration, they may perceive planning a convention in Arizona as potentially controversial and take their business somewhere else.

Based on that future scenario, the report concludes, “Arizona businesses will lose $76 million in direct revenue from decisions not to book in Arizona in the future. That loss translates into 1,475 lost jobs, $46 million in lost wages, $135 million in lost economic output, and $5 million in lost tax revenues.”

Arizona is currently facing an estimated $825 million budget deficit. Local economist John Lucking said that Arizona can “expect to see sluggish growth through next year.”

Last night, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced that he will introduce the DREAM Act after Thanksgiving. In a press release, Reid stated, “Last time we sought to bring up this bill, all Republicans blocked our effort, even though many have been supporters of the DREAM Act in the past. I hope that our Republican colleagues will join me, Sen. Durbin and Democrats in passing this important piece of legislation, now that we have a stand-alone version and that political season is over.”

Without the support of at least a handful of Republicans, the DREAM Act doesn’t stand a chance. Though the majority of Democrats support the legislation, Sens. Max Baucus (D-MT), Kent Conrad (D-ND), Byron Dorgan (D-ND), Kay Hagan (D-NC), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Ben Nelson (D-NE), and Jon Tester (D-MT) have all either voted against the DREAM Act at some point in their careers or expressed reservations about the legislation. However, in the past, the DREAM Act has enjoyed the support of a handful of Republicans. Immigration reform used to be a bipartisan issue. Where these Republicans seem to stand now is outlined below:

LEANING YES:

Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN): Lugar and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) introduced the DREAM Act on March 26, 2009. Although Lugar voted against moving on the Department of Defense (DOD) bill which included the DREAM Act as an amendment, his senior adviser explained that the lawmaker objected to “a vote on proceeding to the defense bill in a very politically charged and unusual way. The DREAM Act deserves a proper debate on its merits.”

Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT): Bennett voted to proceed with debate on the DREAM Act in 2007. Bennett was stripped of his party’s nomination earlier this year and will be leaving the Senate in a month. Essentially, he has nothing to lose by sticking to his guns.

TOSS-UPS:

Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME): Snowe voted to proceed with debate on the DREAM Act in 2007. Snowe justified voting against the DOD bill in September by saying that “the Senate should have the ability to debate more than the three amendments the Majority Leader is allowing.” Snowe is up for reelection in 2012 and could always choose to stick with her party to play it safe.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME): Like her colleague, Collins voted in favor of the DREAM Act in 2007. Before voting against proceeding with the DOD bill, Collins explained, “I find myself on the horns of a dilemma, I support the provisions in this bill. I think it is the right thing to do. I think it is only fair… But I cannot vote to proceed to this bill under a situation that is going to shut down the debate and preclude Republican amendments.” Although she is not up for reelection any time soon, like her colleague (Snowe), Collins is feeling pressure to move farther to the right.

Sen. George LeMieux (R-FL): LeMieux’s predecessor, Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL) was a strong proponent of immigration reform and the DREAM Act. Since Rubio will replace him in 2011, LeMieux doesn’t have to worry about getting reelected. Yet, he is “mulling” a 2012 Senate bid. He has also expressed some hesitation about the bill, saying, “It’s a very difficult situation for kids who are brought to this country and it’s no fault of their own. I understand that and I am sympathetic, but to attach this to this [DOD reauthorization] bill without trying to fix our broken immigration system is disingenous and irresponsible.”

Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH):Voinovich voted against proceeding with the DREAM Act in 2007. However, he has been a strong proponent of AgJOBS, a bill that would put undocumented agriculture workers on a path to legalization and has often been perceived as a swing-vote on immigration bills. He is also retiring from the Senate at the end of the year.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK):Murkowski voted against proceeding with the DREAM Act in 2007. However, she voted in support of the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006. After a tough reelection race, it looks like she will be returning to the Senate to serve another a term. And chances are she’s not to happy with the Republican establishment after losing the Republican primary to Joe Miller.

LONG-SHOTS:

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX): Hutchison voted in favor of the DREAM Act in 2007. However, since then, she has moved farther to the right on the immigration issue. She faces a tough primary in 2012.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX):Cornyn did not support the DREAM Act in 2007. Though he supported comprehensive immigration reform which included the DREAM Act in 2007, it doesn’t sound like he’s up for it in 2010. “This is getting to be a joke. No one believes that there is enough time that we could do a responsible job,” said Cornyn on the DREAM Act in July. According to him, the Senate should approach the issue in “a responsible, reasonable way and not just try to play to the peanut gallery and act like we’re going to do something we’re not.”

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ): Kyl has supported immigration reform in the past, but voted against the DREAM Act in 2007. Like many of his colleagues, his immigration position has hardened and shifted to an enforcement-only approach.

Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA): Brown replaced the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA), a champion of immigrant rights and a tireless advocate for immigration reform. Though there is a lot a pressure on him to take a pro-immigrant stance, so far, he has stuck to his anti-immigrant guns. He recently lashed out at Harvard University, stating “They should embrace young people who want to serve their country, rather than promoting a plan that provides amnesty to students who are in this country illegally.”

DEFINITE NO:

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT): Hatch has supported both the DREAM Act and immigration reform in the past. However, he is facing a tough reelection in 2012 and has already seen his colleague, Bennett, go down in flames. Given the political climate he’s facing in Utah, my guess is he’ll vote no.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA): Grassley voted in support of immigration reform in 2006, but against the DREAM Act in 2007. Over the past three years, his position on immigration has moved so far to the right, it is nearly unrecognizable.

Our guest blogger is Ken Gude, Managing Director of the National Security and International Policy Program at American Progress.

Ahmed Ghailani has been convicted in federal criminal court for his role in the 1998 Embassy bombings in East Africa. The judge in the case will sentence Ghailani to a minimum of 20 years and a maximum of life in prison, guaranteeing a very long sentence for the first Guantanamo detainee to be prosecuted in civilian court.

Naturally, this has made conservatives very angry. They prefer that all terrorism suspects be prosecuted in military commissions, presumably because they believe the sentences delivered in federal criminal court are too long, and they want Guantanamo detainees to be released sooner.

Rep. Peter King (R-NY) called it “a tragic wake-up call to the Obama Administration to immediately abandon its ill-advised plan to try Guantánamo terrorists” in federal courts. “We must treat them as wartime enemies and try them in military commissions at Guantánamo,” Rep. King said. Liz Cheney’s group Keep America Safe railed that “bad ideas have dangerous consequences… We urge the president: End this reckless experiment. Reverse course. Use the military commissions at Guantanamo that Congress has authorized.”

Ghailani and several other co-conspirators were indicted for their roles in the bombings in 1998. Four were convicted in federal criminal court in 2001. Ghailani remained at large until he was captured in Pakistan in 2004, but rather than bringing him to the United States to stand trial like the others, he was put in a secret CIA-run prison for two years and tortured. In 2006, he was transferred to Guantanamo, where he was held until his June 2009 move to New York to stand trial.

The choices the Bush administration made to hold Ghailani in a secret prison, torture him, and delay any trial had several negative effects on the prosecution’s case. Two key witnesses that had participated in the earlier trial have died since 2004. None of the statements Ghailani made while in custody were admissible at trial, and an additional witness was ruled ineligible because of the conditions of Ghailani’s “enhanced interrogation” at secret CIA prisons. Yet despite all of the problems caused by the Bush administration’s decisions, Ghailani was convicted in a fair and transparent system of justice, and will be sentenced by the judge to serve at least 20 years, and probably more, in federal prison.

Understand, the military commissions King and Cheney so favor have held just four trials in their nine years of existence. Two of the defendants have reached guilty pleas, one defendant presented a defense at trial, and another boycotted his trial and was convicted without his involvement. Of the four, two have already been released and have been living freely in their home countries for the last two years, and one was convicted of murder and will serve a maximum of eight years. Only the defendant who offered no defense received a long sentence — life.

The clear and unambiguous record of the military commissions is that they deliver shorter sentences than civilian courts. In fact, the minimum sentence that Ghailani can receive is longer than the combined sentences of the three military commissions defendants who participated in their trial. Yet this is the trial system that conservatives demand. The only conclusion is that they want these Guantanamo detainees to be released quickly.

Following Senator Jon Kyl’s (R-AZ) announcement that he will delay and obstruct the New START treaty, editorial boards in newpapers around the country have eviscerated him and Senate Republicans.

Kyl was described as “narrow-minded,” politically “craven,” and as putting forth “lame excuses.” The New York Times even said Iran should send Kyl a “thank you note.” Given that 73 percent of Americans support the New START treaty, according to a just released CNN poll, the stance of Kyl and Senate Republicans is proving incredibly unpopular.

Here are what newspaper editorial boards are saying:

The New York Times:

The world’s nuclear wannabes, starting with Iran, should send a thank you note to Senator Jon Kyl… The treaty is so central to this country’s national security, and the objections from Mr. Kyl — and apparently the whole Republican leadership — are so absurd that the only explanation is their limitless desire to deny President Obama any legislative success.

Los Angeles Times:

when Republican Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the GOP’s point man on the issue, decided this week that the treaty wasn’t important enough to be taken up by the lame-duck Congress, it was pretty clear that he was acting not in the interest of the nation but of his party.

Times Record of Mid-coast Maine:

Our country’s national security shouldn’t be subject to political gamesmanship. But that’s exactly what’s happening in the U.S. Senate, where the Republican leadership has been using lame excuses to hold up the ratification vote…The silence of our two U.S. senators on this treaty is perplexing, given that both Sen. Olympia Snowe and Sen. Susan Collins have supported earlier arms control agreements negotiated by Republican presidents. We encourage them to speak up for national security and urge their Republican leaders to stop the politicking and ratify this treaty.

Read more

Dismantling the arguments against the New START treaty on the NewsHour last night, Richard Burt, the Reagan administration’s chief U.S. negotiator for the original START treaty, noted that “there are only two governments in the world that wouldn’t like to see this treaty ratified, the government in Tehran and the government in North Korea.”

Aside from the fact that nearly 75 percent of Americans want to see it ratified, Burt also warned that, if the treaty fails, not only would “we miss the opportunity to improve relations with the Russians, who have supported us on Iran and U.N. sanctions and increasingly in Afghanistan,” but the U.S. would also “lose all credibility on the problem of stopping nuclear proliferation.”

Discussing the jockeying over the treaty on Rachel Maddow’s show last night, The Cable’s Josh Rogin made a similar point, noting that a failure to ratify New START “hurts Obama’s credibility to negotiate future treaties with any other countries around the world.”

But as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has already — repeatedly — admitted, the GOP’s main goal is making sure that President Obama is “a one term president.” Severely handicapping the President’s ability to credibly conduct American foreign policy — regardless of the actual consequences — is just one tactic in that larger effort.

Very much related, a fairly comprehensive new report on Iran from the Stimson Center and the U.S. Institute of Peace describes how Iranian political jockeying has impacted U.S.-Iran diplomacy over the years:

Iran’s domestic politics have repeatedly undercut US efforts to engage Tehran. In a country where the political system is based in part on an enduring hostility to US political, economic, and even cultural power, Iranian leaders are fearful of any wider solution to the nuclear program that points to rapprochement with Washington. Supreme Leader Khamanei is the most powerful representative of this intensely suspicious view of the US, and thus may resist a wider normalization of relations with the US.

The rise of a new generation of ultra-hardliners, whose most visible spokesman is President Ahmadinejad, poses a host of further challenges. Iran’s president and his allies view the quest for an independent nuclear fuel cycle as central to Iran’s efforts to forge a new alliance of middle-size powers that can challenge the “hegemony” of the capitalist Western countries. That is why their on-going efforts to quell the Green Movement and seize political control from more mainstream conservatives poses a real threat, not merely to many Iranians, but to the region as a whole.

Leaving aside the obvious point about the mutually reinforcing relationship between Iran’s ultra-hardline neoconservatives and the U.S.’s, just as it’s important to try and understand how Iranian domestic politics affects Iranian foreign policy and U.S. perceptions of Iranian aims, we also have to consider this in the other direction: How might Iranians might view the ability of a small group of Republican ultra-hardliners to scuttle as manifestly reasonable and bipartisan a nonproliferation treaty as START? What does it say to them about President Obama’s ability to ratify any future treaty with Iran, which would likely be far more controversial? Will a failure of START strengthen those Iranian voices — either inside the government or out — who oppose nuclear weaponization? Or will it strengthen the hardliners who see the international nonproliferation regime as a joke, and argue that a nuclear weapon is essential for Iranian power and prestige?

In an op-ed in Politico today, Center for American Progress president and CEO John Podesta noted the importance of ratifying New START vis-a-vis Iran and Russia. “The U.S.-Russia ‘reset’ has paved the way for greater Russian cooperation on pressuring Iran to end its pursuit of nuclear weapons and on supply and support for U.S. military operations in Afghanistan. If New START goes down, or is further delayed, Russian cooperation could wane, if not end,” he wrote.

Cross-posted on The Wonk Room

Dismantling the arguments against the START treaty on the NewsHour last night, Richard Burt, the Reagan administration’s chief U.S. negotiator for the original START treaty, noted that “there are only two governments in the world that wouldn’t like to see this treaty ratified, the government in Tehran and the government in North Korea.”

Burt also warned that, if the treaty fails, not only would “we miss the opportunity to improve relations with the Russians, who have supported us on Iran and U.N. sanctions and increasingly in Afghanistan,” but the U.S. would also “lose all credibility on the problem of stopping nuclear proliferation.”

Discussing the jockeying over the treaty on Rachel Maddow’s show last night, The Cable’s Josh Rogin made a similar point, noting that a failure to ratify New START “hurts Obama’s credibility to negotiate future treaties with any other countries around the world.”

But as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has already — repeatedly — admitted, the GOP’s main goal is making sure that President Obama is “a one term president.” Severely handicapping the President’s ability to credibly conduct American foreign policy — regardless of the actual consequences — is just one tactic in that larger effort.

Very much related, a fairly comprehensive new report on Iran from the Stimson Center and the U.S. Institute of Peace describes how Iranian political jockeying has impacted U.S.-Iran diplomacy over the years:

Iran’s domestic politics have repeatedly undercut US efforts to engage Tehran. In a country where the political system is based in part on an enduring hostility to US political, economic, and even cultural power, Iranian leaders are fearful of any wider solution to the nuclear program that points to rapprochement with Washington. Supreme Leader Khamanei is the most powerful representative of this intensely suspicious view of the US, and thus may resist a wider normalization of relations with the US.

The rise of a new generation of ultra-hardliners, whose most visible spokesman is President Ahmadinejad, poses a host of further challenges. Iran’s president and his allies view the quest for an independent nuclear fuel cycle as central to Iran’s efforts to forge a new alliance of middle-size powers that can challenge the “hegemony” of the capitalist Western countries. That is why their on-going efforts to quell the Green Movement and seize political control from more mainstream conservatives poses a real threat, not merely to many Iranians, but to the region as a whole.

Leaving aside the obvious point about the mutually reinforcing relationship between Iran’s ultra-hardline neoconservatives and the U.S.’s, just as it’s important to try and understand how Iranian domestic politics affects Iranian foreign policy and U.S. perceptions of Iranian aims (for example, how Iran’s inability to agree to the October 2009 TRR deal was treated by some simply as evidence of Iran’s irretrievably aggressive intent), we should also consider this in the other direction: How might Iranians might view the ability of a small group of Republican ultra-hardliners to scuttle as manifestly reasonable and bipartisan a nonproliferation treaty as START? What does it say to them about President Obama’s ability to ratify any future treaty with Iran, which would likely be far more controversial? Will a failure of START strengthen those Iranian voices — either inside the government or out — who oppose nuclear weaponization? Or will it strengthen the hardliners who see the international nonproliferation regime as a joke, and argue that a nuclear weapon is essential for Iranian power and prestige?

It would be great if conservatives could cease rubbing their hands together for a moment to consider some of these questions.

The North American Integration and Development Center at UCLA has released a new report highlighting the economic benefits of enacting the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act. The report, entitled “No DREAMers Left Behind: The Economic Potential of DREAM Act Beneficiaries” states:

Passage of the DREAM Act is not only a question of individual fulfillment; it is a practical step toward realizing a return on the U.S. public education system’s investment in immigrant youths. DREAMers make up a highly-educated and potentially high-income earning group that can contribute billions of dollars to the U.S. economy across diverse industries. The DREAM Act offers a moral solution to the trap of being a young, motivated, undocumented immigrant in the U.S. It is also an economically sensible piece of legislation that advances the interests of U.S. society as a whole.

More specifically, the report concludes, “In the No DREAMers Left Behind scenario, 2.1 million undocumented immigrants would become legalized and generate approximately $3.6 trillion” over a 40-year period. Another positive effect of the DREAM Act would be that “[a] higher supply of skilled students would also advance the U.S. global competitive position in science, technology, medicine, education and many other endeavors.”

These findings are especially significant given the nation’s falling level of educational attainment. As Wonk Room economics blogger Pat Garofalo notes, “By 2025, according to estimates by the Lumina Foundation, our nation will be short 16 million college-educated workers. This will have real consequences for both the economy as a whole and for individual workers.”

In the past, the College Board has indirectly supported the report’s conclusions, stating, “In strictly economic terms, the contributions that DREAM Act students would make over their lifetimes would dwarf the small additional investment in their education beyond high school, and the intangible benefits of legalizing and educating these students would be significant.”

The reasoning behind the report’s findings is pretty straightforward. The DREAM Act provides young undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. through no fault of their own with the opportunity to get on a path to legalization by attaining a college education or serving in the military. As a result, those who qualify for the DREAM Act will also have access to better economic opportunities than they would if they were working without a visa in the shadows of the economy.

Even former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-AK) agrees with that logic, saying, “the economy will be better when that [undocumented] kid is able to fully realize his potential and break the pattern of his parent’s illegal activity.” Polls show that 70 percent of Americans support the DREAM Act.

Yesterday, after a meeting between the President and Latino congressional leaders, the White House issued a press release stating, “The President and the CHC [Congressional Hispanic Caucus] leaders believe that, before adjourning, Congress should approve the DREAM Act.” The question is whether Rupublicans will join or obstruct the effort to allow undocumented students to improve their lives and the U.S. economy.

Yesterday, USA Today reported that Arizona’s immigration law — SB-1070 — may be straining U.S. relations with Latin America. The article notes that ten Latin American countries signed on to a brief opposing SB-1070 in the Department of Justice lawsuit challenging the law. The piece then goes on to quote several noted Latin America experts who express concern over the law’s foreign relations implications:

State Department spokesman Charles Luoma-Overstreet said the law has impacted relations between the United States and Latin American countries, becoming a topic of discussion “in all our interactions” with those nations.

“The countries in Latin America are already perceiving some distance and disengagement from the U.S.,” said Mauricio Cardenas, director of the Latin American Initiative at the Brookings Institution. “(The Arizona law) makes Latin America more and more interested in developing stronger relations with other parts of the world.” [...]

Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, worries that Obama’s stance on the law may not be enough to soothe other countries. “I’m sure that Mexico is happy that the Obama administration is challenging these laws. But I’m not sure they’re persuaded that the Obama administration is in control,” Alden said. “The worry is that the states are going to start driving the bus, too.”

Alden said it’s the latest in a long line of slights to the region that started with the Bush administration and has continued under Obama. [...] “If you put (the Arizona law) on top of all that, it’s the latest in a pretty long series,” Alden said.

Alden makes a compelling point. Americans weren’t the only ones hoping for change in 2008. In testimony before Congress delivered earlier this year, Peter Hakim of the Inter-American Dialogue noted that “no event since John F. Kennedy’s election in 1960 was more welcomed in Latin America or held out greater expectations for improving the region’s ties with the U.S. than Barack Obama’s electoral victory in November 2008.” Nonetheless, Hakim also noted, “U.S. policy remains largely unchanged and it is hard to identify a single Latin American country that has a better relation with Washington today than it did during President Bush’s tenure.”

Hakim explicitly pointed to the absence of immigration reform. A similar criticism was put forth by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) when George W. Bush was still president in 2008. In its report, “U.S.-Latin America Relations: A New Direction for a New Reality,” CFR wrote that “the failures of U.S. immigration policy have become a foreign policy problem.” CFR noted that though the U.S. tends to think of immigration as a domestic policy issue, it inherently has a “profound impact” on Latin American nations. “The tenor of recent immigration debates and the failure to pass meaningful immigration reform have hurt U.S. standing in the region, as many Latin American nations (including those without large populations in the United States) perceive current laws as discriminatory and unfair toward their citizens,” explained the report, two years before Arizona passed the harshest immigration law in the country. The CFR Task Force recommended enacting immigration reform to meet U.S. security, economic, and foreign policy interests.

The Task Force also pointed out that while the U.S. lags in its response to 21st century migration patterns, Latin American governments are ahead of the curve. “Latin American governments are pushing forward concrete policies to address the accelerating movement of people within the region as well as capitalize on migration to the United States,” wrote CFR. “U.S. policies lag far behind those of Latin American governments in adapting to the realities of increased human mobility.”

Appearing on MSNBC with Andrea Mitchell today, Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) attempted to justify the threatened Republican obstruction of the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia. But in doing so, he wrongly called Russia the Soviet Union — not once, but twice. Watch it:

While Barrasso may say this was a slip of the tongue and that he knows that the Soviet Union collapsed nearly twenty years ago in 1991, this is not the first time far-right senators have made this mistake when talking about START. Barrasso also tellingly concluded his remarks by asserting that he disagrees “with the component [of START] that weakens our own missile defense against all enemies, not just the Soviet Union.”

Grouping the Soviet Union (meaning Russia) with other “enemies” of the U.S., is reflective of an outdated Cold War mindset that can only lead to renewed tensions with Russia.

Should Republicans kill the New START treaty, the “reset” of U.S.-Russian relations may collapse. This could endanger U.S. troops in Afghanistan, who depend on supply routes through Russia, and could derail Russian cooperation on Iran sanctions. Perhaps most worrying is that without New START, the U.S. will be unable to monitor Russia’s nuclear arsenal as it has since the end of the Cold War, potentially creating significant nuclear instability. As Andrea Mitchell explained to Barrasso:

With all due respect senator…if you believe in trust and verify this enables us to put people back on the ground there and verify what the Russians are doing where as right now we can’t.

Barrasso’s claim that the treaty undercuts missile defense is also just flatly untrue. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly the head of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency — who was appointed under President Bush — said that New START would “reduce the constraints on the development of the missile defense program.” This is why the U.S. military stands in unanimous support of the treaty and is calling on Senate Republicans to support it as well.

Speaking at the National Press Club this morning, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN) called Iran “a danger to every nation in the world,” and claimed that, according to “intelligence,” “we know that they [Iran] already have a nuclear capability.”

This is at odds with the CIA’s March 2010 report (pdf) to Congress, which did not state that Iran had already achieved a weapons capability, but that:

We continue to assess Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons in part by developing various nuclear capabilities that bring it closer to being able to produce such weapons, should it choose to do so. We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons.

Bachmann may have been misled by a sensational(ly dishonest) Washington Times headline that screamed “CIA: Iran capable of producing nukes.” In the body of that story, however, reporter Bill Gertz acknowledges the CIA report actually states nothing of the kind, but rather “reflects the published conclusion of a controversial 2007 National Intelligence Estimate that stated Iran had halted work on nuclear weapons in 2003.”

The promotional materials for this morning’s event, hosted by the right-wing organization Freedom Watch, condemned the Obama administration’s policy of “appeasement” and stated that, as Iran “introduces nuclear weapons into the Middle East… the Islamic regime of fraudulently-elected President Ahmadinejad must be removed now, before it is too late.”

Bachmann also called for the U.S. to support the People’s Mujahideen of Iran, also known as the Mujahideen Khalq Organization (MKO), an organization previously supported by Saddam Hussein and listed by the State Department as a terrorist organization since 1997 for alleged attacks on Americans.

Referring to the People’s Mujahideen Bachmann said, “We have shackled this freedom-seeking group which has the ability to help Iranians rise up against that tyrannical regime.”

I predicted last week that we should expect to see conservative calls for the U.S. to support the People’s Mujahideen — which, like the Iraqi National Congress, enjoys little actual support among the people they propose to lead in revolution — though I’m actually a bit surprised to see it come so soon.

Anyone who thought Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) would just throw up his hands and yell – yes, I support START! – was always living in dream land. Yet, upon Kyl’s release of a timid statement that says he doesn’t think a vote can get done in the lame duck session, reporters have scrambled to pen stories claiming that START is now unlikely to happen. But Kyl’s statement — which still refuses to take a position on the treaty, but typically calls for more delays — actually makes Kyl less relevant. It’s not about deal making with Kyl anymore, it is about the willingness of the White House and Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) to force a vote on START. Reid, not Kyl, controls the Senate calendar, after all.

Throughout the START process, Kyl has been a force for delay and obstruction. Last summer, Kyl was whining immensely that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) was rushing the process and that a committee vote should not happen until after the August recess. After the SFRC delayed, Kyl spoke to Reuters who paraphrased Kyl:

It could be difficult to satisfy his [Kyl's] demands before November and thus the vote on New START might need to take place during the lame duck session if the Senate wants to vote on the treaty this year.

After Sen. Kerry (D-MA) delayed the SFRC vote, I wrote at the time disapprovingly:

Delaying the vote, may have made sure that Senator Kerry and the Administration couldn’t be accused of “rushing” the process, but in the end it probably only strengthened Kyl’s hand and got him closer to his goal of blocking the treaty this year. In the end, the only way the treaty probably gets passed this year is if the Obama administration and the Senate leadership call Kyl out and force a vote.

But Kyl kept moving the goal posts. In September, after the SFRC did hold its vote, Kyl and Senate Republicans argued that having a vote before the election was impossible because it would politicize the process and that a vote should happen after the election. Time Magazine quoted an anonymous Senate Republican Aide who said:

This notion that [ratification] is going to happen before November is completely absurd… It reeks of politics.

Predictably, now that the election has passed, Kyl and Republicans say there isn’t enough time in the Senate calendar. Well, there would be plenty of time in the Senate calendar if Senate Republicans agreed to not needlessly stall the process. But Kyl’s statement essentially threatens to do exactly that –- to attempt to run out the clock on the Senate session and force Reid to forgo bringing up the treaty. He threatened the same thing last summer.

But the ball is no longer in Kyl’s court. The question is now will Reid and the White House give up and say there isn’t enough time for START or will they make the time and force a vote.

Perhaps, if a vote is forced, Kyl will lead a mass Republican boycott, in which pro-START Senators vote no out of party loyalty. That is a risk. But if Kyl is actually willing to vote no on the treaty in the lame duck, than he is in all likelihood not going to push for ratification in the new Senate, making the treaty all but dead anyway. Forcing a vote is also less risky than starting the ratification process from scratch and leaving the treaty in the hands of the next Senate. So essentially, what Kyl says or doesn’t say in the next few weeks shouldn’t change the calculus on whether or not to hold a vote.

As ThinkProgress and The Progress Report have documented, there is a growing coalition of both Tea Party-backed conservatives and stalwart progressives who are coming together to demand cuts to the bloated defense budget. This coalition was given further momentum last week, when the co-chairs of President Obama’s Deficit Reduction Commission released a report that calls for $100 billion in defense cuts.

This morning, Defense Secretary Robert Gates pushed back against this movement for defense cuts. Speaking at the Wall Street Journal CEO Council, Gates revealed that he had told the co-chairs of the deficit commission that it would be “catastrophic” to cut defense spending by 10 percent. He told attendees today that cutting defense spending requires a “scalpel, not a meat axe,” and concluded, “When it comes to the deficit, the Department of Defense is not the problem“:

President Barack Obama’s deficit commission last week recommended significant cuts in military spending as part of its formula for drying up red ink in the federal budget. Tuesday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates punched back. “When it comes to the deficit, the Department of Defense is not the problem,” Mr. Gates told attendees at the Wall Street Journal CEO Council here.

Mr. Gates says he met with deficit panel chairs Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson and delivered the message that a proposal to cut military spending by 10% “would be catastrophic,” given security threats the U.S. faces and save only $55 billion. That would make only a minor dent in a deficit that’s over $1 trillion a year, he suggested. Defense savings, he said, require “a scalpel, not a meat axe.”

Mr. Gates says he’s getting good cooperation from military leaders in an effort to cut $100 billion from military overhead, but he said he wants to reinvest that money in increasing the military’s fighting capability — what Mr. Gates called the “tooth side.”

U.S. defense spending dwarfs over one hundred countries’ GDPs, and 2009 spending is over $500 billion more than what China reportedly budgets, the world’s next highest military spender. And it is simply untrue that the Department of Defense is not a major factor in the budget deficit. Defense spending has accounted 65 percent of the discretionary spending increase since 2001, making it a key factor in the growth of the U.S. budget deficit since then.

To really understand exactly how much spending the Department of Defense consumes, all one has to do is look at the amount of discretionary spending that goes to the military compared to other sectors. The non-partisan National Priorities Project put together the following graph, showing how discretionary spending for FY2010 is doled out. The Pentagon’s budget consumes 58 percent of this spending, dwarfing all other sectors:

Last spring, Gates gave a speech at the Eisenhower Library about the need for a more efficient and streamlined Pentagon budget. He warned that creating such a budget would take “political will and willingness…to make hard choices — choices that will displease powerful people both inside the Pentagon and out.” It is up to Gates to admit that reining in the Pentagon budget must be part of any serious effort to reduce the deficit, and to stand up to those “powerful people.”

Today, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Rep. Nydia Velasquez (D-NY) and Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) will meet with President Obama to talk about a way to pass immigration reform or the DREAM Act during Congress’s lame-duck session. If the Democrats decide to move forward on immigration, it will be the first time Congress seriously undertakes immigration since the failed Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 and the DREAM Act debate which took place a few months later.

The first bill was strongly backed by the White House, which was then occupied by the second Bush administration. Former President George W. Bush reflected on the failure of immigration reform at a book fair this past weekend:

BUSH: The issue got away. The rhetoric on the issue was very difficult. And somebody was nervous about the border — and I can understand why people are, we ought to enforce our borders — but automatically labeling any comprehensive plan as pure amnesty made it very difficult to get people to pay attention.

Meanwhile, last night, former Secretary of State from the first Bush administration, Colin Powell, explained what moderate Republicans should stand for:

POWELL: A moderate Republican in my judgement is someone who is quite sympathetic to the social needs of our citizens, who is open towards immigration. Immigration is keeping our country thriving. And the issue of civil rights and the issue of taking care of those in our society who are not doing as well as the rest of us — I think that should be part of the Republican mantra too.

Watch it:

Over the past couple of weeks, Bush has repeatedly alluded to the heated rhetoric around the immigration issue that killed comprehensive reform. Yet, he has stopped short of naming names. As Congress considers taking up the issue again, it’s worth noting that it was members of Bush’s own party that engaged in anti-immigrant fear mongering and that they paid for it dearly in the 2008 elections.

Back when Bush was president, Congress still had plenty of Republicans who were moderate on immigration. In fact, several of them — including Sens. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), John McCain (R-AZ), and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) — were looked upon as champions of immigration reform. Now, those three Senators, along with the rest of their party, are the biggest thing standing in its way. Most of them have resorted to the polarizing rhetoric cited by Bush whenever any plan to regularize the status of undocumented immigrants is brought up. No matter how stringent the penalties and requirements are, they cry “amnesty.”

I’ve written before about the serious defects of the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007, but, regardless of its flaws, it represents an era of bipartisanship and compromise on immigration that Republicans seem incapable of today. I’d love for Republicans to prove me wrong by embracing immigration legislation in the next few weeks. I’m not holding my breath on that, but I am willing to place money on the fact that if they don’t, the Latino vote will come back to bite them again in 2012.

Over the past several months, neoconservatives have been ramping up efforts to pressure the Obama administration into threatening a “military option” against Iran.

In September, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) declared, “It is time to retire our ambiguous mantra about all options remaining on the table,” and tell the Iranians that we will prevent them from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability “with military force if we absolutely must.” Lieberman restated this view in a Wall Street Journal op-ed this morning.

Last week, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) took it upon himself to make U.S.-Iran policy, insisting that “containment is off the table,” and saying that the U.S. should go to war with Iran “not to just neutralize their nuclear program,” but to “neuter that regime.”

Speaking in New Orleans last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu added his voice to the pressure effort, saying, “If the international community, led by the U.S., wants to stop Iran without resorting to military action, it will have to convince Iran that it is prepared to take such action.”

Speaking today, however, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates knocked back such calls for more aggressive rhetoric, saying that military action is not a long-term answer:

“A military solution, as far as I’m concerned … it will bring together a divided nation. It will make them absolutely committed to obtaining nuclear weapons. And they will just go deeper and more covert,” Gates said.

“The only long-term solution in avoiding an Iranian nuclear weapons capability is for the Iranians to decide it’s not in their interest. Everything else is a short-term solution.”

In a recent article, the Brookings Institution’s Ken Pollack concluded that, in addition to generating a number of other highly negative consequences, “attacking Iran is more likely to guarantee an Iranian nuclear arsenal than to preclude it.” Numerous other defense analysts and officials have reached similar conclusions.

In addition to representing the strong consensus of the national security community, Gates’ aversion to hawkish rhetoric also reflects the view of Iranian human rights activists like Shirin Ebadi and Akbar Ganji, who have said that military threats from the U.S. are harmful to their efforts to challenge the regime internally.

Over the past several months, neoconservatives have been ramping up efforts to pressure the Obama administration into threatening a “military option” against Iran.

In September, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) declared, “It is time to retire our ambiguous mantra about all options remaining on the table,” and tell the Iranians that we will prevent them from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability “with military force if we absolutely must.” Lieberman restated this view in a Wall Street Journal op-ed this morning.

Last week, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) took it upon himself to make U.S.-Iran policy, insisting that “containment is off the table,” and saying that the U.S. should go to war with Iran “not to just neutralize their nuclear program,” but to “neuter that regime.”

Speaking in New Orleans last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu added his voice to the pressure effort, saying, “If the international community, led by the U.S., wants to stop Iran without resorting to military action, it will have to convince Iran that it is prepared to take such action.”

Speaking today, however, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates knocked back such calls for more aggressive rhetoric, saying that military action is not a long-term answer:

“A military solution, as far as I’m concerned … it will bring together a divided nation. It will make them absolutely committed to obtaining nuclear weapons. And they will just go deeper and more covert,” Gates said.

“The only long-term solution in avoiding an Iranian nuclear weapons capability is for the Iranians to decide it’s not in their interest. Everything else is a short-term solution.”

In a recent article, the Brookings Institution’s Ken Pollack concluded that, in addition to generating a number of other highly negative consequences, “attacking Iran is more likely to guarantee an Iranian nuclear arsenal than to preclude it.” Numerous other defense analysts and officials have reached similar conclusions.

In addition to representing the strong consensus of the national security community, Gates’ aversion to hawkish rhetoric also reflects the view of Iranian human rights activists like Shirin Ebadi and Akbar Ganji, who have said that military threats from the U.S. are harmful to their efforts to challenge the regime internally.

Cross-posted on ThinkProgress.

As ThinkProgress and The Progress Report have documented, there is a growing coalition of both Tea Party-backed conservatives and stalwart progressives who are coming together to call for reining in the bloated defense budget.

On Saturday, during an interview with Fox News, former Arkansas Gov. and GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee joined this coalition by advocating for sensible cuts to the defense budget where they are warranted. When asked by host Dave Briggs about “some of the defense cuts” proposed in a recently-released report from President Obama’s deficit reduction commission, Huckabee responded by saying, “we’re still designing a lot of military hardware for a war that we don’t plan to fight.” He went on to say that our military “priorities don’t have to be bloated with a lot of stuff that really is not about keeping us safe and protecting and caring for veterans. So yes, there are areas of the defense budget that need to be looked at honestly”:

DAVE BRIGGS: I was surprised, though, that the right wasn’t as outspoken about some of the defense cuts that we need to make. A hundred billion dollars slashed out of that beast of a defense budget. It’s unpatriotic to come out and talk about the defense budget, but the Pentagon is accepting airplanes that they don’t even need.

HUCKABEE: They don’t need and that they don’t want. And what happens is, we’re still designing a lot of military hardware for a war that we don’t plan to fight. And, Robert Gates the Defense Department secretary, who I think has done an excellent job, and he has been one of those willing to grind sacred cows into hamburger and serve it rare, has really helped to identify ways in which we can keep ourselves strong, not cutting the military strength and not hurting veterans. There are two things Americans don’t want to do, number one, get weak and, number two, hurt the veterans who kept us free. But those priorities don’t have to be bloated with a lot of stuff that really is not about keeping us safe and protecting and caring for veterans. So yes, there are areas of the defense budget that need to be looked at honestly.

Watch it:

If Huckabee is really serious about reining in the defense budget, he can look to the Sustainable Defense Task Force (SDTF) report released earlier this year. The SDTF — which was chaired by Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) and staffed by some of the nation’s leading defense and budget experts — identified nearly $1 trillion in waste that can be cut from the defense budget over the next ten years simply by eliminating outdated Cold War-era programs. He could also reference a recent report by Center for American Progress experts Lawrence Korb and Laura Conley that lays out $108 billion in defense cuts in the current 2015 budget forecast.

By admitting that the Department of Defense is “bloated” and that the defense budget needs to be “looked at honestly,” Huckabee is joining a wide-ranging Tea Party-progressive coalition that includes major conservatives like Sens. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Bob Corker (R-TN), along with proud progressives like Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Jeff Merkely (D-OR).

However, this coalition will face resistance from establishment Republicans. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), speaking at today’s Foreign Policy Initiative conference “Restoring America’s Leadership of a Democratic World,” appeared to address this growing coalition. “Rand Paul, he’s already talked about withdrawals, cuts in defense,” said McCain. “I worry a lot about rise of protectionism and isolationism in the Republican Party.”

Today, Congress welcomes for orientation a new class of fresh-faced Republicans to Washington, DC. These newcomers also usher in a whole new brand of congressional leadership because, with the new House majority, the GOP’s veteran extremists are set to become Committee chairmen.

But not all Republicans are thrilled by this right-wing swing. Last week, a Republican Latino group — the Somos Republicans — wrote an open letter to presumptive House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and current House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) requesting that they reconsider entrusting Rep. Steve King (R-IA) and Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) with House subcommittee on immigration and the House judiciary Committee chairmanships, respectively. Due to both King and Smith’s “defamatory” anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies, the group warned that their leadership would insult Latinos and wreck the GOP’s chances in 2012:

As we are already looking toward the 2012 Presidential Elections, we respectfully ask you to take heed to our request out of concern for our nation. Congressmen Smith and King have repeatedly engaged in rhetoric that is aimed negatively toward Hispanics. Steve King has used defamatory language that is extremely offensive to Hispanics, which is found in numerous congressional records. We believe Steve King’s behavior is not appropriate for a high-level elected Republican who might be in charge of a committee that handles immigration rules. Steve King and Lamar Smith have adopted extreme positions on birthright citizenship, and promise legislation that would undermine the 14th amendment of the constitution, which both swore an oath to uphold.

While it is indeed the duty of the Judiciary and Immigration committees to oversee and enforce existing immigration laws, Representatives Smith and King have engaged in an ill-advised platform and rhetoric that has been perceived as insensitive with their inflammatory “immigration statements,” and this has caused an exodus of Hispanic voters to the Democratic party. We ask that you review Mr. King’s and Mr. Smith’s congressional statements desiring to “pass a bill out of the House to end the Constitution’s birthright citizenship for U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants,” or what Steve King has made reference to “anchor babies.” We find both this rhetoric and this un-constitutional conduct reprehensible, insulting and a poor reflection upon Republicans because we don’t want our Party to be viewed as the Party of changing the United States Constitution.

Failing to receive a response last week, the Somos Republicans sent an “urgent letter” Friday regrading King’s continued use of “defamatory language that is extremely offensive to Hispanics,” referring to another instance in which King used the term “anchor baby” when asked a question pertaining to Harry Reid and the DREAM Act on FOX News. King said that children qualifying for a path to citizenship under the DREAM Act “are illegal. They aren’t anchor babies that were born here and that received this practice of birthright citizenship. They came here illegally.”

The Somos Republicans are right to be worried. King has become “the right’s biggest anti-immigration flamethrower” by comparing “border-crossers to livestock,” describing illegal immigration as a “slow-motion terrorist attack,” and defending racial profiling because “looking illegal” is “common sense.” Earlier this month, King even announced his plans to advance legislation to “put an end to the anchor babies in this country.” In a quick look at Smith’s anti-immigration efforts, including ending birthright citizenship and preventing non-existent “de-facto amnesties,” the Wonk Room’s Andrea Nill notes that Smith will similarly “use his leadership position to push through his anti-immigrant agenda.”

Despite the seniority of these two bosom buddies, the GOP should heed the Somos Republicans warning. As Nill points out, the “GOP is quickly losing the few Latino leaders it once had.” And with a third of the incoming class chomping at the bit to end birthright citizenship and thus reduce legal immigration, Republicans are giving Latinos more incentive to abandon the Party. (HT: Iowa Independent)

Cross-posted at ThinkProgress.

President Obama has made ratification of the New START nuclear arms treaty with Russia a top priority for the upcoming lame duck session of Congress, saying the treaty is “essential to the country’s national security.” An extension of the original treaty negotiatied by President Ronald Reagan, the START treaty responsibly reduces U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals by one-fourth. It has secured the “unanimous support of America’s military leadership,” thirty former Republican and Democratic national security officials, and almost all of the 67 votes needed for ratification in the Senate.

Despite the overwhelming support, a “tiny fringe” of right-wing “experts” are ginning up myths about the treaty. One such mouthpiece is Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Claiming to be “open-minded” on the treaty, Graham told host Christine Amanpour on ABC’s This Week today that he could not support the treaty “in its current condition” because of “two obstacles” — nuclear modernization and missile defense:

AMANPOUR: Do you believe it will be voted on and ratified in the lame duck session?

GRAHAM: I don’t know, I’m very open-minded about the treaty as Secretary Albright indicated….You’ve got two impediments. Modernization, not only do we need a START treaty but we need to modernize our nuclear force, the weapons left, to make sure they continue to be a deterrent and make sure we can deploy missile defense systems apart from START. So you got two stumbling blocks, the modernization program and how missile defense works apart from the treaty.

AMANPOUR: Would you vote for it?

GRAHAM: In its current condition, no, but [Sen.] Jon Kyl is working with the administration to get better modernization to make sure missile defense is not connected with START. If you could get those two things together, I’d vote for the treaty. I’d rather have a treaty than not have a treaty but modernization, missile defense have to be better dealt with before we get there.

Watch it:

The only problem with Graham’s “stumbling blocks” is that they don’t actually exist. While “security experts” like Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), and former Bush administration Ambassador John Bolton insist that Obama is “risking our security” by supposedly not focusing on modernization of America’s nuclear arsenal, the actual rocket scientists of an independent defense advisory panel determined that not only are the weapons completely reliable, but that our current “nuclear warheads could be extended for decades, with no anticipated loss in effectiveness.” To make sure this remains the case, the Obama administration devoted $7 billion to maintain the nuclear-weapons stockpile — $600 million more than Congress approved last year and 10 percent more than what the Bush administration spent.

As for START’s impact on missile defense, Director of the Missile Defense Agency Lt. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly made it clear that the new treaty “has no constraints on current and future components of the Ballistic Missile Defense System,” and that it actually “reduces” several limitations on cost-effective testing. Thus, given Graham’s criteria for support, treaty proponents should expect his vote.

But regardless of the actual facts, Graham and his Republican comrades seem intent on lobbing unfounded myths to obstruct the treaty’s passage. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who has made a career on obstruction, certainly is comfortable bucking any cooperation to oppose Obama. But “given the new spotlight on the GOP,” the Wonkroom’s Max Bergmann notes that blocking START “could be a politically dubious stance” since “the treaty is seen as something that is just basic commonsense.” And with two-thirds of Americans supporting ratification of the new START treaty, the by killing the treaty, Senate Republicans will provide clear evidence that they champions the delusional interests of a few over the will and security of the American people.

Yesterday, members of the Neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement gathered in front of the Sandra Day O’Connor Federal Court Building in Phoenix, AZ to protest a federal judge’s decision to block several provisions of the state’s controversial immigration law, SB-1070. Pollice had to interfere with tear gas and pepper spray when a group of counter-protesters clashed with the neo-Nazi march. Watch ABC15′s coverage:

Yesterday’s march is yet another example of the increasing participation of white supremacist groups in the SB-1070 immigration debate. This past summer, the East Valley Tribune reported that that “[w]hite supremacist activity is on the rise in Arizona.” Bill Straus of the Anti-Defamation League said of SB-1070, “It does seem like the distance between what most of us would consider the extreme fringes of political thought and the mainstream of political thought, it seems like that distance has shrunk.”

It’s not surprising that SB-1070 has attracted extremism. The lawyers who are credited with authoring it are employed by an organization that has reportedly accepted $1.2 million in donations from the Pioneer Fund, “a foundation established to promote the genes of white colonials.” The law’s sponsor, state Rep. Russell Pearce (R-AZ), has faced criticism in the past for cozying up to local neo-Nazis. He even endorsed one of “Arizona’s leading neo-Nazis,” J.T. Ready, when the he ran for City Council in the spring of 2006.

Meanwhile, a recent poll revealed that many Arizonans think the immigration debate has “exposed a deeper sense of racism in our community.”

Cross-posted at ThinkProgress.

In a interview with the Dallas Morning News published yesterday, former President Bush touted his authorization of waterboarding as a key accomplishment to “leav[ing] behind a firmer foundation for my successors.” “[W]e passed laws that Congress endorsed and embraced, like the Terrorist Surveillance Program, military tribunals and enhanced interrogation techniques. The enhanced interrogation techniques are available to presidents if they so choose to use them.” Bush’s comments come on the heels of the revelation, published in his memoir released this week, that he personally authorized the waterboarding of 9/11 suspects.

Bush has adamantly defended his use of waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques” over the years, saying the practices saved lives, were completely legal, and were not torture — but many rightly disagree. On Thursday, the American Civil Liberties Union “joined a growing chorus in the human rights community calling for a special prosecutor to investigate” Bush’s use of waterboading to determine whether his administration “violated federal statutes prohibiting torture.” “[T]he former President’s acknowledgment that he authorized torture is absolutely without parallel in American history,” the ACLU wrote in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder.

And yesterday, the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Mendez — who was himself tortured by the Argentinean junta in the 1970s — firmly stated that waterboarding is torture — “immoral and illegal.” In a radio interview with Mark Colvin of ABC News in Australia, Mendez said the legal memos authorizing waterboaring that Bush “hides behind” were “completely flawed,” and that there isn’t “any question” under international law that what Bush authorized was torture:

JUAN MENDEZ: Mr Bush hides behind the fact that he is not a lawyer and he has this folksy you know kind of cute way of saying, well the lawyers told me it was legal, as if he didn’t know that it’s immoral. You know? Immoral and illegal. I mean he can’t really hide behind his lawyers.

I mean he was very hypocritical of him to say something like that. I mean it’s been so clearly established that those memos were, they don’t even deserve the name of legal memos because they are completely flawed from the legal reasoning. But even worse they are morally flawed as well.

MARK COLVIN: There’s no question that in international law waterboarding is torture?

JUAN MENDEZ: I don’t think there is any question, any serious question. I mean it’s a question of severity. If you think that waterboarding is not severe mistreatment you don’t really know what waterboarding is. … I mean if you then redefine upwards the severity standard to say that it’s only severe if it’s organ failure or death, then you know you’re really very clearly distorting the sense of the words and you know words have to be interpreted in treaty language, they have to be interpreted in their plain meaning and their plain meaning couldn’t be more clear in the case of waterboarding.

Listen here:

This not the first time that someone with Mendez’ job has called out Bush’s use of torture. Former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Professor Manfred Nowak, agreed that waterboarding is torture. He even warned the Obama administration that it may be violating international law by failing to adequately investigate the Bush administration on the matter. As a party to the UN Convention Against Torture, the U.S. is obligated to investigate and prosecute U.S. citizens that are believed to have engaged in torture, he noted.