Chicago Sun-Times Editorial - America needs to know truth on torture policy

Chicago Sun-Times Editorial - America needs to know truth on torture policy
Copyright by The Chicago Sun-Times
April 23, 2009
http://www.suntimes.com/news/commentary/1539627,CST-EDT-edit23a.article


President Obama decided this week that when it comes to this country's treatment of terrorism suspects, America can look forward, as well as back.

The president had made clear that torture has no place in his administration but previously had shown little stomach for unearthing the past errors -- and even possible crimes -- of the Bush administration regarding its treatment of terrorism suspects.

On Tuesday, though, the president altered his position, by not ruling out the creation of a bipartisan commission to investigate the interrogation techniques approved under the Bush administration.

Nor did Obama shut the door on the Justice Department's taking action, if warranted, against the officials who provided the legal opinions to justify those techniques.

These are subtle but important changes, and we applaud them.

The more we learn about how the interrogation policies were developed under Bush officials and what precisely happened in those interrogations, the more we want to hear the full and complete story.

More troubling facts came out Tuesday in a Senate Armed Services Committee report. It found that CIA and Pentagon officials were getting ready to use harsh interrogation methods well before they received legal approval to do so.

While that report gave some answers, America needs more.

An independent commission, after careful consideration, could tell the American public as complete a story as possible and show the world America's commitment to exposing the truth, even when that truth is embarrassing to many of us.

Such a commission could also answer key questions in the debate over harsh interrogation techniques -- whether the techniques work.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney has called for the release of classified memos that he says will show that the techniques provided critical information.

We're all for Cheney's suggestion, as long as the release of those memos isn't selective -- only the successes.

It's important to gauge whether the brutal interrogation techniques routinely produced valuable intelligence or generated only a few valuable trinkets amid a sea of sewage.

We sympathize with the argument that revisiting the entire matter through a truth commission could provide great distractions when the country's focus is needed on more pressing topics, like fixing the economy and health care.

To address that concern, law-makers should appoint independent fact-finders above reproach to the commission rather than fill it with fellow politicians.

We strive, after all, to be a country of laws, and that commitment applies not only when it's convenient.

To that goal, the president needs to give his full support -- rather than the half-hearted language he has used -- to his Attorney General Eric Holder on the torture issue. Holder needs full rein to investigate whether any Bush policymakers justified torture and determine whether they should be prosecuted.

Holder has shown he's got the right stuff in the courtroom. After all, he quickly dismissed the case against former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, a Republican, when it became clear that prosecutors working in the Bush Justice Department engaged in serious misconduct during the trial.

When it comes to the Bush administration, we know it's easy to Monday-morning quarterback.

Clearly, our leaders after 9/11 were under tremendous pressure to stop more attacks, and they may have made honest mistakes.

But that hardly justifies continuing flawed or illegal policies for years.

As more facts have come to light, a troubling question centers on whether the Justice Department crafted legal memos to green-light torture practices already under way.

Getting to that answer and other essential truths will not weaken this country; it will only make it stronger.