Comments Of Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.),
Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee,
On Executive Orders Related To Detainees
January 22, 2009
“As I have urged, President Obama has not lost a day in seeking to
restore America to our place as a world leader in championing human
rights. These executive orders add to his actions yesterday in
making good on his promise to ‘reject as false the choice between our safety and our
ideals.’
“President Obama’s new
executive
orders are important steps toward bringing to an end some of the Bush
administration’s most damaging national security policies. These
orders require the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to be closed
within one year; explicitly ban torture and require that all
interrogations follow the Army Field Manual; close all secret CIA
prisons, and require that the government find lawful means to
detain people captured in connection with an armed conflict or in
counterterrorism efforts.
“I have long called for closing the detention facility at Guantanamo
Bay, and I look forward to working with the President to implement this
plan. I support President Obama’s decision to revoke
President Bush’s Executive Order allowing the CIA to continue the use of
harsh interrogation techniques on individuals in U.S. custody and his
steps to ensure that they are treated lawfully and in accordance with
our treaty obligations and will not be transferred to other countries
where they will be tortured. These orders call for comprehensive
interagency reviews, a refreshing new approach after eight years of
secrecy and efforts to cast all blame on individual guardsmen and
soldiers for abuses at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere that derived from
decisions made at the highest levels of the Bush administration.
“I am encouraged by President Obama’s commitment to a thorough review of
the legal basis for many of the Bush administration’s detainee policies.
By prohibiting any federal agency from relying on legal opinions
regarding interrogations issued between September 11, 2001, and January
20, 2009, President Obama has shown a commitment to the rule of law and
an interest in ensuring that that the government’s detainee policies and
practices are on sound legal ground. Of course, the Bush
administration stonewalled congressional efforts to review these
documents and resisted my requests over several years to review these
opinions. I am encouraged that the Justice Department will no
longer provide legal opinions, like the so-called ‘torture memos,’ that
were designed to shield the government from accountability and provide
cover for illegal activities.
“These orders are first steps. Congress must work in a bipartisan
way with President Obama to implement them. The Justice Department
will share much of the responsibility for carrying out these orders,
which is yet another reason why we should act swiftly to confirm the
nominee for Attorney General, Eric Holder. Our new President is sending
a clear signal that we are moving forward and demonstrating to the world
that we can both protect our national security and remain a nation of
laws that respects human dignity.”
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