Bush Legacy Watch (Froomkin / WaPo)

[struggle4progress]

By Dan Froomkin
1:09 PM ET, 02/27/2009

Mark Mazzetti writes in the New York Times: "The Senate Intelligence Committee is completing plans to begin a review of the C.I.A.'s detention and interrogation program, another sign that lawmakers are determined to have a public accounting of controversial Bush administration programs despite White House concerns about the impact of unearthing the past ...

Meanwhile, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, continues to push for a "truth commission" that would much more publicly investigate not just torture and secret prisons, but the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program and other Bush administration misdeeds ...

Glenn Greenwald writes for Salon: "It's true that those who create the Commission might...intend it to be a substitute for prosecutions rather than a precursor to them. It's also possible that the Commission can be designed merely to placate those who are demanding that something be done, and -- if immunity is doled out to high-level Bush officials -- it could simply whitewash these crimes and even make prosecutions impossible. But it's just as possible that once an independent body is created with real subpoena power and an authentic mandate to dig and disclose, it could turn into a Frankenstein: capable of doing damage far beyond what its creators intended" ...

And Craig Whitlock writes in The Washington Post: "A United Nations special investigator has concluded in a report scheduled for release Friday that foreign intelligence agents sent to question U.S.-held terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay had violated international human-rights laws ...

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/white-house-watch/2009/02/bush_legacy_watch_1/pf.html

[Liberal_Christian]

1. Sounds like more "passing the buck" Bullshit to me.

Let's not loose sight of who is to blame; Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld. Again Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld. One more time; Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld. Not the CIA. Not anyone but Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld. The CIA was doing what they were told and you have to remember that experts from the CIA, the FBI, even Bush's own defense advisors were all saying we shouldn't have started any of this. But NO; President Puppet, Dick "Haliburton" Cheney, and "Dr. Evil" ignored anyone with with more than an ounce of brain activity and human decency.

[struggle4progress]

3. Well, let's see: we have an upcoming investigation by Senate Intelligence. We're going to

get something from Senate Judiciary. The UN keeps weighing in. House Judiciary is in court on some matters and generally not pleased

I could be wrong -- but I don't think this is headed for a buck-passing slide into the memory hole any time soon

[Demeter]

2. But the CIA IS Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld!

Well, maybe not Rumsfeld. Poppy's CIA hasn't had enough retirement by death yet to shake loose his grip.

[MasonJar]

4. If everf a special prosecutor was called for it is now. Obama and the AG

have the power to appoint one. Why do they not? It takes the problem off their hands.