Obama Releases Bush Memos Detailing Torture

Speaker puts herself at center of storm over Bush policies

(NEWSER) - Whether by accident or design, Nancy Pelosi has turned the debate on the Bush administration's anti-terror program into a high-stakes game of brinksmanship, Dan Balz writes in the Washington Post. Pelosi's declaration yesterday that the CIA lied to Congress amounts to "a declaration of war," Balz writes, setting the stage for a long battle certain to claim political casualties. More»

President's belief in rule of law won out in choice to release Bush-era memos

(NEWSER) - President Obama spent weeks thinking "very long and hard" about his "weighty decision" to release memos on harsh CIA interrogation techniques green-lighted by the Bush administration, senior adviser David Axelrod tells Politico. In the end, Axelrod says, the president's belief in transparency and the rule of law won out over the principle of the sanctity of covert operations. More»

The practice is Un-American and must stop: John McCain

(NEWSER) - Some have used the death of Osama bin Laden as evidence to support the use of torture—but claims that such techniques led us to the al-Qaeda leader are simply not true, writes John McCain in the Washington Post . The senator points to former attorney general Michael Mukasey’s assertion that, under “harsh interrogation techniques,” Guantanamo prisoner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed revealed the name “of a trusted courier of bin Laden.” “That is false,” McCain writes. More»

(NEWSER) - AG Eric Holder today named a special prosecutor to investigate allegations of torture against CIA operatives who interrogated terror suspects during the Bush administration, the Washington Post reports. John Durham, who is currently probing the destruction of interrogation tapes, will look into fewer than 12 cases detailed in a CIA report released today and determine if a full-scale investigation is warranted. The Bush-era Justice Department investigated and dismissed the cases. More»

(NEWSER) - A report long suppressed by Bush administration officials set to be released next week says the CIA used mock executions as part of post-9/11 interrogations, Newsweek reports—though federal law prohibits threatening prisoners with “imminent death,” and the practice wasn’t authorized by the Justice Department, unlike other “enhanced” techniques like waterboarding. More»