The worst keeps getting worse

Most likely, the latest revelations about coercive interrogation techniques used by the CIA in Afghanistan are not nearly the end of the story of U.S. excesses in the so-called War on Terror. But they certainly help explain the maniacal secrecy of U.S. authorities under the Bush administration in keeping information about the interrogation program from the public. Top government officials, notably but probably not limited to Vice President Dick Cheney and President Bush, knew the program violated the country's international treaty obligations but authorized it anyway, and kept it secret not out of concern for the United States, as they said, but to keep their own selves out of trouble. They probably expected to be honored as heroes for saving the country from danger and gave only passing thought to the fact that they were sacrificing the United States' very reason for existence. They probably still don't get it, and blame the new president, Barack Obama, for whatever is about to unfold. The fact that their policies were rejected by an overwhelming majority of voters in the last election does not even register as a repudiation -- they think the public just doesn't understand. But the people of the United States know when the government is taking away their constitutional rights, spying on them, and doing nearly unspeakable harm to others while hiding behind the flag. The new information, contained in a top-secret CIA report being made public next week, include threatening detainees with a mock execution, a handgun and an electric drill, was revealed by officials who had access to the report, according to the Washington Post newspaper. The threatened execution was used in an effort to pursuade suspected al-Qaida commander Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, suspected of being the mastermind of the attack on the U.S.S. Cole that killed 17 sailors in 1999, to provide information to his interrogators. Federal law prohibits threatening a prisoner with immediate death, the Post said. Al-Nashiri later was one of three detainees subjected to waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning. A CIA spokesman said the agency did not endorse such excesses and promptly investigated any reports of them. "The CIA in no way endorsed behavior -- no matter how infrequent -- that went beyond formal guidance," said Paul Gimigliano, the agency spokesman, according to the Post. "This has all been looked at; professionals in the Department of Justice decided if and when to pursue prosecution. That's how the system was supposed to work, and that's how it did work." The actual report, which was compiled in 2004, is expected to be made public next week, the newspaper said.

They're back! Obama to revive military commissions to try terror suspects

Maybe the most important thing to remember is that the Obama administration is still a work in progress, even if it is filled with very smart, capable people and led by an apparently very smart and capable president. Otherwise, it's hard to see Barak Obama's expected decision today to resume military trials for high-profile terror suspects as anything but a betrayal of a promise he made to millions of voters in the 2008 presidential campaign. If media reports are true, Obama plans to announce today that the Bush-era military commission system will be reinstituted, albeit with changes to better-protect detainees' rights, according to Cable News Network (CNN). CNN cited three unamed administration officials who said the commission trials would resume with expanded due process rights for suspects. Among the changes will be outlawing the use of evidence obtained using controversial invasive interrogation techniques, new restrictions on the use of unsubstantiated allegations, guaranteeing the right to remain silent and allowing suspects more say in choosing their lawyers, according to a statement released by the White House. "These reforms will begin to restore the Commissions as a legitimate forum for prosecution, while bringing them in line with the rule of law," Obama said in the statement. "This is the best way to protect our country, while upholding our deeply held values." Administration critics and some allies jumped on the statement, calling it a retreat. The administration denied that, but that's exactly what it was. Obama apparently decided that it was not worth all the problems that completely doing away with the commissions would create, even though he strongly objected to them in Congress and during the campaign. But some commentators speculated that Obama's decision merely reflected the difference between campaigning and governing.

Indictments in the offing for Bush and Cheney?

What isn't being said in the uproar over President Barack Obama's recent statements about investigating harsh interrogation tactics approved by Bush administration officials in apparent violation of longstanding treaty obligations is the obvious: that all investigations lead directly to the Oval Office. We now know that Condoleezza Rice personally approved the CIA's use of waterboarding, which involves simulated drowning, in 2002, and that the technique was used more than 200 times against three suspected terrorists, according to the Reuters international news service. Then-Vice President Dick Cheney said a year later that the White House backed the interrogation program, Reuters said, citing a report issued today by the Senate Intelligence Committee. We can tell where this is going. Rice would not have approved such a controversial program without discussing it with then-president George W. Bush, her good friend, and Bush would not have agreed without discussing it with Cheney. If anyone is ever going to be held liable for the Bush administration's gross perversion of justice, the indictments certainly should start at the top.

Obama changes course; may now favor prosecutions

Seemingly just days after ruling out the prosecution of CIA agents who used torture to interrogate terrorism suspects, President Barack Obama created a media firestorm Tuesday when he said he might favor investigating and prosecuting Bush administration officials who authorized the harsh methods. Obama's statement followed weeks of denials, in which the president said the country should be looking ahead and not examining the recent past, according to the New York Times. The controversial remarks came while Obama was answering questions from reporters in the oval office. "If and when there needs to be a further accounting," he said, Congress should figure out how to get it "in a bipartisan fashion" from people independent from the government. The comments certainly suggest that that Obama now favors an independent investigation of the Bush administration policies, perhaps by a special prosecutor. Obama also suggested he might favor the prosecution of the attorneys who wrote legal justifications for the harsh interrogation policies when he said that question would be up to Attorney General Eric Holder. "I don't want to prejudge that," Obama said. Three Bush administration lawyers who signed the legal memorandums, John C. Yoo, Jay S. Bybee and Steven G. Bradbury, are expected to be the subject of a highly critical Justice Department report that could recommend their disbarment. Obama's latest statements come while reverberations from the administration's release of the secret memos are still reverberating in Washington. The memos revealed that two al-Qaida operatives were subjected to waterboarding, a type of simulated drowning, more than 250 times, the Times said. Release of the memos prompted the predictable howls of outrage from Obama's Republican critics, including former Vice President Dick Cheney, the Times said.