Obama Urged to Investigate Bush Torture Claims

Mr Bush has said techniques he and his administration sanctioned, saved lives

A campaign group has decided the  president should order a criminal investigation into alleged torture sanctioned by the Bush administration. Human Rights Watch (HRW) says there is "overwhelming evidence" of torture ordered by George W Bush.  The former president has defended some of the techniques, saying they prevented attacks and saved lives.

The Obama administration has launched inquiries into deaths in CIA custody and other "unauthorized actions". But HRW argues these inquiries will not cover the activities which were specifically authorized as legal by officials within the Bush administration. The former president, vice-president, defence secretary and head of the CIA should all be investigated, the group says. "There are solid grounds to investigate [George] Bush, [former vice-president Dick] Cheney, [former defence secretary Donald] Rumsfeld, and [former CIA director George] Tenet for authorizing torture and war crimes," said Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watch's executive director.  "President Obama has treated torture as an unfortunate policy choice rather than a crime.
"His decision to end abusive interrogation practices will remain easily reversible unless the legal prohibition against torture is clearly re-established."

In its 107-page report, HRW claims there is substantial information warranting criminal investigations of Mr Bush and his senior officials for ordering practises such as waterboarding, the use of secret CIA prisons and the transfer of detainees to countries where they were tortured.  Mr Bush has said he followed the advice of his legal advisers, who told him, for example, that the use of waterboarding on several Guantanamo inmates was legal.

The failure to investigate officials undermines US efforts to press for accountability for human rights violations abroad in countries like Libya and Sri Lanka, the group argues.

 Waterboarding:
The Bush administration sought legal approval before authorizing waterboarding.  The Bush administration classified it as an "enhanced interrogation technique", but waterboarding is widely regarded as torture and in 2009 President Barack Obama banned its use. It is believed to have been used on three al-Qaeda prisoners under the Bush administration.
Waterboarding involves a prisoner being restrained on his back with his feet at a level higher than his head, or hung upside down. A cloth is placed over the prisoner's face or pushed into his mouth. Sometimes a plastic film is used. Water is then poured on to his face and into his nose and mouth. The prisoner gags almost immediately as the water starts entering the lungs. As he starts to feel he is drowning, he typically panics and struggles, and his body goes into spasm. Waterboarding can result in brain damage, broken bones and psychological damage.

Does it come under a technical definition of torture?
Human rights groups and many governments say that it does. The United States government under George W Bush did not agree. But President Obama thinks it is torture and so does his CIA chief Leon Panetta.
Torture is defined by the 1949 UN Convention against Torture as "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person..." in order to get information.

The US  signed the Convention. The eighth amendment to the US Constitution banning "cruel and unusual punishment" is also held to prohibit torture. The US legal code defines torture as an action "specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering". So why did the US use waterboarding? Because it did not at the time classify waterboarding as torture and regarded it as an effective method in a small number of cases.
It made a distinction between "torture", which it accepted is banned by US and international law, and so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques". These techniques included not only waterboarding but sleep deprivation, subjection to cold and long periods of standing, and some slapping.

Has President Obama banned waterboarding by all US government agencies, including the CIA? Yes. He has brought the CIA into line with the US military, which in 2006, in a new army manual on collecting intelligence, banned torture and degrading treatment, including waterboarding, forced nakedness, hooding and sexual humiliation. The manual's publication followed the scandals at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the passing of the Detainee Treatment Act in 2005, which prohibited the "cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment" of detainees.

President Bush excluded the CIA from the restrictions imposed on the military. He did so in an executive order in July 2007, which sought to define the American commitment to the Geneva Conventions' Common Article 3 prohibition on cruel, humiliating and degrading treatment and torture. The order declared that a CIA "programme of detention and interrogation" complied with the Geneva Conventions.
The order listed interrogation methods and practices that are not allowed. These ranged all the way from murder and rape to acts of humiliation.
The banned methods did not, however, include the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques.

Geez Louise, enhanced interrogation techniques might also include ripping out finger nails, electric shocks to the testicles or chopping off fingers and toes. Well, why not??  Whatever euphemisms you use, it's still torture Mr Bush.