[Vision2020] "Harsh" Interrogations -As ye sow, so shall you

[bear at moscow.com]

And Just today:

      UN torture envoy: US must prosecute Bush lawyers
	 VIENNA (AP) - The U.S. is obligated by a United Nations convention to prosecute Bush 
administration lawyers who allegedly drafted policies that approved the use of harsh 
interrogation tactics against terrorism suspects, the U.N.'s top anti-torture envoy said
Friday.
Earlier this week, President Barack Obama left the door open to prosecuting Bush 
administration officials who devised the legal authority for gruesome terror-suspect 
interrogations. He had previously absolved CIA officers from prosecution.
Manfred Nowak, who serves as a U.N. special rapporteur in Geneva, said Washington is 
obligated under the U.N. Convention against Torture to prosecute U.S. Justice Department 
officials who wrote memos that defined torture in the narrowest way in order to justify
and 
legitimize it, and who assured CIA officials that their use of questionable tactics was
legal.

"That's exactly what I call complicity or participation" to torture as defined by the
convention, 
Nowak said at a news conference. "At that time, every reasonable person would know that 
waterboarding, for instance, is torture."
Nowak, an Austrian law professor, said it was up to U.S. courts and prosecutors to prove
that 
the memos were written with the intention to incite torture.
Nowak also said any probe of questionable CIA interrogation tactics must be independent
and 
have thorough investigative powers.
"It can be a congressional investigation commission, a special investigator, but it must
be 
independent and with thorough investigative powers," Nowak said.

On Thursday, Obama's press secretary suggested Obama does not care for an independent 
panel.
Last week, the Obama administration released secret CIA memos detailing interrogation
tactics 
sanctioned under Bush.
The memos authorized keeping detainees naked, in painful standing positions and in cold
cells 
for long periods of time. Other techniques included depriving them of solid food and
slapping 
them. Sleep deprivation, prolonged shackling and threats to a detainee's family also were
used.
Nowak said Saturday that Obama's decision not to prosecute CIA operatives who used 
questionable interrogation practices violates the same U.N. convention. But at that point
he did 
not specifically address the issue of how the convention would apply to those who drafted
the 
interrogation policy and gave the CIA the legal go-ahead. 


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