The Significance of Human Rights Watch\u2019s New Call To Prosecute Bush Officials For Torture
\n By Jeffrey Kaye – The Public Record – Jul 14th, 2011<\/p>\n
Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a new report Tuesday. As they stated in the press release announcing the 107-page report, \u201cGetting Away with Torture: The Bush Administration and Mistreatment of Detainees\u201d (HTML, PDF), there is \u201coverwhelming evidence of torture by the Bush administration.\u201d As a result, President Barack Obama is obliged \u201cto order a criminal investigation into allegations of detainee abuse authorized by former President George W. Bush and other senior officials.\u201d<\/p>\n
In particular, HRW singled out \u201cfour key leaders\u201d in the torture program. Besides former President George W. Bush, the report indicts former Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and CIA Director George Tenet. But others remain possible targets of investigation and prosecution. According to the report:<\/p>\n
Such an investigation should also include examination of the roles played by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and Attorney General John Ashcroft, as well as the lawyers who crafted the legal \u201cjustifications\u201d for torture, including Alberto Gonzales (counsel to the president and later attorney general), Jay Bybee (head of the Justice Department\u2019s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC)), John Rizzo (acting CIA general counsel), David Addington (counsel to the vice president), William J. Haynes II (Department of Defense general counsel), and John Yoo (deputy assistant attorney general in the OLC).<\/p>\n
But the key passage in the HRW report concerns the backing for international prosecutions, under the principle in international law of \u201cuniversal jurisdiction,\u201d which was used back in 1998 by Spanish Judge Baltasar Garz\u00f3n to indict former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet for genocide and murder. …more<\/a><\/p>\n