Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Miami Herald
November 13, 2008
By Carol Rosenberg
Two human rights groups urged the future Obama administration on Wednesday to appoint a well-funded commission with subpoena power to systematically examine the U.S. treatment of detainees at Guantánamo and elsewhere since the 9/11 attacks.
Activists at the University of California, Berkeley, and the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights made the recommendation as they released a two-year study of the impact of U.S. detention and interrogation practices on former captives at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
The proposal for a special investigation of detention policies similar to the 9/11 Commission is not new.
But it comes at a critical time -- as Democrats are creating a transition for President-elect Barack Obama, who campaigned on a promise to close the controversial prison camps in southeast Cuba.
The groups do not specifically recommend who should run the panel, or any other aspect of its composition, but they suggest members be drawn from the ranks of former military officers, medical and psychological providers, and international law experts.
They say the group should tackle still-open questions surrounding the interrogation, detention and rehabilitation of former detainees, with an eye toward recommending criminal investigations if it uncovers ``any crimes at all levels of the chain of command.''
The report recommends that any future commission consider:
• Whether there is a need to reform how the United States apprehends and screens suspected enemy fighters.
• Ideas on how to prevent abusive detention and interrogation practices.
• How to improve the monitoring of treatment of former detainees upon their release from U.S. custody. Should the commission conclude the U.S. government violated a detainee's rights, it said, it should consider issuing an apology, providing compensation or a method of formally clearing the detainee's name to lessen any stigma associated with time served in southeast Cuba.
The Defense Department holds about 250 foreign men in the prison camps today and has already sent home for resettlement or further investigation some 520 others.
Critics of U.S. detention and interrogation policy have at times called for a special prosecutor to investigate whether White House policies that endorsed such practices as waterboarding of CIA detainees violated international law.
In July, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof urged the U.S. to set up a ''Truth Commission'' armed with subpoena power to establish accountability, not necessarily to bring about prosecutions.
Its objective, he wrote, should be ``to lead a process of soul searching and national cleansing.''
``That was what South Africa did after apartheid, with its Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and it is what the United States did with the Kerner Commission on race and the 1980s commission that examined the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.''
But Vincent Warren of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has helped Guantánamo detainees sue for their freedom, disagreed with the idea on Wednesday.
He said such commissions are on occasion established after regime change abroad, to uncover truths and move on. Should crimes be uncovered, he said, those responsible should be prosecuted.
November 13, 2008
By Carol Rosenberg
Two human rights groups urged the future Obama administration on Wednesday to appoint a well-funded commission with subpoena power to systematically examine the U.S. treatment of detainees at Guantánamo and elsewhere since the 9/11 attacks.
Activists at the University of California, Berkeley, and the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights made the recommendation as they released a two-year study of the impact of U.S. detention and interrogation practices on former captives at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
The proposal for a special investigation of detention policies similar to the 9/11 Commission is not new.
But it comes at a critical time -- as Democrats are creating a transition for President-elect Barack Obama, who campaigned on a promise to close the controversial prison camps in southeast Cuba.
The groups do not specifically recommend who should run the panel, or any other aspect of its composition, but they suggest members be drawn from the ranks of former military officers, medical and psychological providers, and international law experts.
They say the group should tackle still-open questions surrounding the interrogation, detention and rehabilitation of former detainees, with an eye toward recommending criminal investigations if it uncovers ``any crimes at all levels of the chain of command.''
The report recommends that any future commission consider:
• Whether there is a need to reform how the United States apprehends and screens suspected enemy fighters.
• Ideas on how to prevent abusive detention and interrogation practices.
• How to improve the monitoring of treatment of former detainees upon their release from U.S. custody. Should the commission conclude the U.S. government violated a detainee's rights, it said, it should consider issuing an apology, providing compensation or a method of formally clearing the detainee's name to lessen any stigma associated with time served in southeast Cuba.
The Defense Department holds about 250 foreign men in the prison camps today and has already sent home for resettlement or further investigation some 520 others.
Critics of U.S. detention and interrogation policy have at times called for a special prosecutor to investigate whether White House policies that endorsed such practices as waterboarding of CIA detainees violated international law.
In July, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof urged the U.S. to set up a ''Truth Commission'' armed with subpoena power to establish accountability, not necessarily to bring about prosecutions.
Its objective, he wrote, should be ``to lead a process of soul searching and national cleansing.''
``That was what South Africa did after apartheid, with its Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and it is what the United States did with the Kerner Commission on race and the 1980s commission that examined the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.''
But Vincent Warren of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has helped Guantánamo detainees sue for their freedom, disagreed with the idea on Wednesday.
He said such commissions are on occasion established after regime change abroad, to uncover truths and move on. Should crimes be uncovered, he said, those responsible should be prosecuted.