“I have said repeatedly that I intend to close Guantanamo, and I will follow through on that. I have said repeatedly that America does not torture, and I’m going to make sure that we don’t torture. Those are part and parcel of an effort to regain America’s moral stature in the world.”
That unequivocal passage from President-elect Barack Obama’s first extended interview since the election, broadcast on “60 Minutes” Sunday night, was a big step toward healing the damage that the Bush administration has done not just to our nation’s image, but to its soul.

At Guantanamo, at Abu Ghraib and in a little gulag of secret CIA prisons overseas, the Bush administration failed to live up to these basic responsibilities, and thus sullied us all.
We will look back on the Bush years and find it incredible, and disgraceful, that individuals were captured in battle or “purchased” from self-interested tribal warlords, whisked to Guantanamo, classified as “enemy combatants” but not accorded the rights that status should have accorded, held for years without charges—and denied the right to prove that they were victims of mistaken identity and never should have been taken into custody.

A new study by researchers at the University of California at Berkeley, based on interviews with 62 men who were held for an average of three years at Guantanamo before being released without ever being accused of a crime, found that more than a third said they were turned over to their American captors by warlords for a bounty. Those who reported physical abuse said most of it occurred at the U.S.’s Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, where about half the men were initially held before being taken to Guantanamo.
Two-thirds of the former detainees reported suffering psychological problems since their release, and many are now destitute, shunned by their families and villages. None has received any compensation for the ordeal, according to the report, titled “Guantanamo and Its Aftermath.”

Obama’s clarity on the issues of Guantanamo and torture stands in contrast to his necessary vagueness about how he will deal with the economic crisis. Torture is wrong today and will still be wrong tomorrow, whereas today’s economic panacea can be tomorrow’s drop in the bucket. Who would have thought that these “war on terror” issues would be the easy part for the new president?
The new Obama administration has a duty to conduct its own investigation and tell us exactly what was done in our name. Realistically, some facts are going to be redacted. Realistically, some officials who may deserve to face criminal charges will not. But to restore US national honor and heal their national soul, at least we need to know.