OBAMA OPEN TO PROBE OF BUSH OFFICIALS
WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama left open the possibility of legally pursuing the Bush administration officials who formulated the policies that led to "enhanced interrogation techniques" which critics have called torture.Mr. Obama said Tuesday he hasn't changed his position that employees and contractors of the Central Intelligence Agency shouldn't be prosecuted for the techniques spelled out in documents released by his administration last week, such as water boarding, slamming detainees against false walls and confining them in cramped spaces, sometimes with insects to induce fear.
But he drew a distinction between those who carried out the policies and those who formulated them. Speaking to reporters at the conclusion of a meeting in the Oval Office with Jordan's King Abdullah, Mr. Obama said the Department of Justice is looking into the Bush-era memos that authorized the interrogation tactics and that he did "not want to prejudge" the outcome of that examination.The president came close to endorsing an independent, bipartisan commission to examine the use of torture and other tactics in the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Rather than open congressional hearings, which Mr. Obama said tend to break down into partisan recrimination, "a more sensible approach" would be a bipartisan examination that would include "independent participants who are above reproach."
He cautioned that he was not saying such a commission "should be done," but his positive words will almost certainly bolster calls from senior Democrats in Congress for a "truth commission" to look back at the policies in what President George W. Bush called the global war on terror.
He cautioned that he was not saying such a commission "should be done," but his positive words will almost certainly bolster calls from senior Democrats in Congress for a "truth commission" to look back at the policies in what President George W. Bush called the global war on terror.
Courtesy: THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
BUSH COULD BE THE NEXT WAR CRIMES
THE HAGUE: George W. Bush could one day be the International Criminal Court's next target. David Crane, an international law professor at Syracuse University, said the principle of law used to issue an arrest warrant for Omar al-Bashir could extend to former US President Bush over claims officials from his Administration may have engaged in torture by using coercive interrogation techniques on terror suspects.Crane is a former prosecutor of the Sierra Leone tribunal that indicted Liberian President Charles Taylor and put him on trial in The Hague.
Richard Dicker, director of the International Justice Programme at Human Rights Watch, said the al-Bashir ruling was likely to fuel discussion about investigations of possible crimes by Bush Administration officials.
Congressional Democrats and other critics have charged that some of the harsh interrogation techniques amounted to torture, a contention that Bush and other officials rejected.
The prospect of the court ever trying Bush is considered extremely remote, however.
The US Government does not recognise the court and the only other way Bush could be investigated is if the Security Council were to order it, something unlikely to happen with Washington a veto-wielding permanent member.
Courtesy: NZ Herald
VISITORS GEOFLAGS SINCE AUGUST 26, 2009
