Senator calls for 'truth commission' to probe Bush-era interrogations

Source: Los Angeles Times

Senator calls for 'truth commission' to probe Bush-era interrogations
By Josh Meyer
May 14, 2009

Reporting from Washington -- The partisan clash over controversial Bush administration interrogation methods intensified Wednesday at a Senate hearing, with the chairman saying a "truth commission" is all but inevitable.

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The Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing, the first by Congress on the Bush administration's use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques, also revealed some new details about how the harsh tactics were authorized and used.

Ali Soufan, a former FBI counter-terrorism agent and interrogator, testified that President George W. Bush and Justice Department lawyers were wrong when they said that waterboarding and other tactics used on one suspect provided key pieces of intelligence about Al Qaeda after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Testifying from behind a screen to protect his identity, Soufan said the techniques, touted by the Bush administration as perhaps its most effective weapon against terrorism, were actually slow, ineffective and unreliable.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-interrogate14-2009may14,0,4657867.story

and a Grand Jury.

But I support the idea over a truth commission.

The reason why I don't like grand juries is because the defense can't challenge evidence. Like one judge said a prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich because a prosecutor is the only one presenting evidence.

Special prosecutor most definately.

Maybe Arlen Specter can be on the truth commission.

I'm sure he has a brilliant 'magic waterboard' theory. I'm dying to hear it. (No, not really.)

Bush administration officials need to suffer punishment for what they did.

with my limited knowledge of what I learned on the internet I knew the commission was covering up and protecting people.A truth commission on will discover nothing,but will be a cover up to protect Bush.

Source: Hatford Courant

Senator calls for 'truth commission' to probe Bush-era interrogations
By Josh Meyer
May 14, 2009

Sheldon Whitehouse says officials apparently used twisted interpretations of the law to justify harsh tactics such as waterboarding. A GOP colleague suggests that Democrats are just playing politics.

The partisan clash over controversial Bush administration interrogation methods intensified Wednesday at a Senate hearing, with the chairman saying a "truth commission" is all but inevitable...

Philip D. Zelikow, who was a legal advisor to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, provided new details about what he said were his efforts to aggressively protest the use of the techniques in meetings in the White House situation room and elsewhere.

In each case, he said, he was routinely blocked by more senior administration officials and ordered to destroy a lengthy legal memo in which he outlined his concerns about the "unsound, even unreasonable" legal justifications for the tactics.

Zelikow, now a history professor at the University of Virginia, called the interrogation campaign "an unprecedented program of coolly calculated dehumanizing abuse and physical torment to extract information." It was, he added, "a mistake, perhaps a disastrous one" that should be investigated so the country can learn from it.

Whitehouse vowed more hearings on the legality of the interrogations, in tandem with the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is investigating whether the techniques worked and how they were used.

Whitehouse said mounting evidence suggests that administration officials used twisted legal interpretations to authorize the tactics. He also said he was concerned about information provided by Zelikow and others, suggesting that administration officials beat back internal opposition that was much stronger than has been disclosed.


Read more: http://www.courant.com/news/nationworld/la-na-interrogate14-2009may14,0,5435079.story

has already posted this but thought it deserved another look

witnesses and make them eat it themselves?

After all, if you right eye offend thee, and so on.

(Yeah, okay, I just like the idea of feeding them their own eyes.)


NO COMMISSION! Investigate, indict, convict, imprison, execute.

will be one of the members of the 'truth' commission. I can just see him grilling Rummy about war crimes..they'd probably have a good laugh.

http://freethoughtmanifesto.blogspot.com/2007/12/henry-kissingers-war-crimes.html

Investigate...prosecute...jail criminals (GOP or DEM)...start over