Nonpartisan Review Concludes-Bushco/Highest Officials Bore Ultimate Responsibility For Torture

[kpete]

U.S. Practiced Torture After 9/11, Nonpartisan Review Concludes
By SCOTT SHANE
Published: April 16, 2013 126 Comments


WASHINGTON — A nonpartisan, independent review of interrogation and detention programs in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks concludes that “it is indisputable that the United States engaged in the practice of torture” and that the nation’s highest officials bore ultimate responsibility for it.

The sweeping, 577-page report says that while brutality has occurred in every American war, there never before had been “the kind of considered and detailed discussions that occurred after 9/11 directly involving a president and his top advisers on the wisdom, propriety and legality of inflicting pain and torment on some detainees in our custody.” The study, by an 11-member panel convened by the Constitution Project, a legal research and advocacy group, is to be released on Tuesday morning.

Debate over the coercive interrogation methods used by the administration of President George W. Bush has often broken down on largely partisan lines. The Constitution Project’s task force on detainee treatment, led by two former members of Congress with experience in the executive branch — a Republican, Asa Hutchinson, and a Democrat, James R. Jones — seeks to produce a stronger national consensus on the torture question.

While the task force did not have access to classified records, it is the most ambitious independent attempt to date to assess the detention and interrogation programs. A separate 6,000-page report on the Central Intelligence Agency’s record by the Senate Intelligence Committee, based exclusively on agency records, rather than interviews, remains classified.




http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/16/world/us-practiced-torture-after-9-11-nonpartisan-review-concludes.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes&_r=1&

[AnotherMcIntosh]

1. It is a violation of both U.S. and international law to commit torture. Also, 18 USC 3 provides:

Whoever, knowing that an offense against the United States has been committed, receives,
relieves, comforts or assists the offender in order to hinder or prevent his apprehension, trial
or punishment, is an accessory after the fact.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/3

At a minimum, those in the Bush Administration who were accessories after the fact committed high crimes and should be prosecuted.

Exceptions apparently exist, however, for the politically well connected.

[on point]

2. And therefore, the following people should be prosecuted for war crimes....

[JDPriestly]

3. K&R. This report is a first step toward honesty. Perhaps the Bush and Obama

administrations will admit what happened and at least issue apologies. The damage done in the lives of the innocent victims of the Bush administration's torture can never really be undone.

[90-percent]

4. Whats the big deal?

Lyndie England, the mastermind of the entire torture program, and being one of a few bad apples, served her time perhaps six years ago.

The guilty have all been held to account and I'm looking forward to continue looking forward.

-90% Jimmy

[G_j]

5. K&R for war crimes. nt