Democrats push for torture inquiry

Democrats are seizing on a newly declassified report on harsh interrogations conducted by the military of terror suspects to push for a full inquiry of the Bush administration's use of what critics call torture.

The 232-page report released Tuesday by the Senate Armed Services Committee concluded that the military's use of interrogation tactics -- such as stripping detainees, placing them in stressful body positions, and depriving them of sleep -- were authorized at the top levels of the Bush administration, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

"This exhaustive report offers more evidence of failures within the Bush Administration that allowed officials to set history and the law aside to torture detainees despite evidence such methods don’t work," Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, said in a statement today. “Our country is turning away from this dark moment. But we cannot afford to leave it behind until we fully understand what went wrong, and do what we can to ensure that America never again loses sight of its most sacred principles."

"This report is just one in a number of ongoing efforts to learn the whole truth about the Bush Administration's detention and interrogation program. I am an active participant in the investigation underway in the Senate Intelligence Committee, and I continue to believe that we will eventually need an independent commission of inquiry to provide unassailable recommendations to the nation.”

Besides the Intelligence Committee's investigation, Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont has been calling for a "truth commission." On Wednesday, President Obama appeared to open the door to an bipartisan congressional probe.

Top Bush officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, steadfastly claim that the interrogations produced information that helped prevent terrorist attacks. Cheney is seeking the declassification and release of memos that he says would show that.

UPDATE: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi today also endorsed the establishment of a formal "truth commission" to investigate Bush administration anti-terrorism policies, including an examination of the Justice Department lawyers who wrote the memos justifying the interrogations, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

The release last week of the four Justice Department memos has re-energized the push for an investigation or possible prosecution. "Our members are upset about it," Pelosi said of Democrats.

But Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said in a statement that he opposes such a commission "because all of the facts are readily available to the Department of Justice."

"As I have said before, once the administration has a key to the front door, which they've had for several months, all they have to do is find the right filing cabinets and open them, which they're already doing," Specter said.

Meanwhile, Senators John McCain, Joseph Lieberman, and Lindsey Graham sent a letter to Obama today strongly urging him not to prosecute government officials who provided the legal advice on interrogations.

“Pursuing such prosecutions would, we believe, have serious negative effects on the candor with which officials in any administration provide their best advice, and would take our country in a backward-looking direction at a time when our detainee-related challenges demand that we look forward," they wrote.

“Some of the legal analysis included in the OLC memos released last week was, we believe, deeply flawed," the senators added. "We have also strongly opposed the overly coercive interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, that these memos deemed legal. We do not believe, however, that legal analysis should be criminalized, as proposals to prosecute government lawyers suggest."

They concluded: “As you have made clear, we are a nation at war.  Appreciating that reality, we look forward to working with you on the panoply of detainee issues, ranging from interrogation standards to the disposition of detainee cases, which will engage our country going forward.  In the interest of national security, it is the future, rather than the past, on which we believe America's gaze must be fixed.”