Hanging Out the Dirty Laundry

President-elect Obama’s idea for a 9/11-style commission to investigate the Bush administration’s use of torture and other illegal acts — as an alternative to criminal prosecutions — is attracting some interest.

Here’s Michael Isikoff in Newsweek:

Despite the hopes of many human-rights advocates, the new Obama Justice Department is not likely to launch major new criminal probes of harsh interrogations and other alleged abuses by the Bush administration. But one idea that has currency among some top Obama advisers is setting up a 9/11-style commission that would investigate counterterrorism policies and make public as many details as possible. “At a minimum, the American people have to be able to see and judge what happened,” said one senior adviser, who asked not to be identified talking about policy matters. The commission would be empowered to order the U.S. intelligence agencies to open their files for review and question senior officials who approved “waterboarding” and other controversial practices.

Obama aides are wary of taking any steps that would smack of political retribution. That’s one reason they are reluctant to see high-profile investigations by the Democratic-controlled Congress or to greenlight a broad Justice inquiry (absent specific new evidence of wrongdoing). “If there was any effort to have war-crimes prosecutions of the Bush administration, you’d instantly destroy whatever hopes you have of bipartisanship,” said Robert Litt, a former Justice criminal division chief during the Clinton administration. A new commission, on the other hand, could emulate the bipartisan tone set by Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton in investigating the 9/11 attacks. The 9/11 panel was created by Congress. An alternative model, floated by human-rights lawyer Scott Horton, would be a presidential commission similar to the one appointed by Gerald Ford in 1975 and headed by Nelson Rockefeller that investigated cold-war abuses by the CIA.

There is something to be said for this approach. Obviously, it’s a more time-consuming process to investigate, publish the results, and give the public time to absorb exactly what sorts of deeds Bush and his minions are responsible for, and decide how they feel about it — but it’s also more democratic.

Tim F. at Balloon Juice thinks it’s “clearly the right thing to do,” even if the ultimate goal is prosecution:

… A decision this consequential could make the country practically ungovernable if the administration imposes it on the nation from the top down. Actually, let me correct myself. A well-meaning administration might lose control if it tried indicting half of the previous one without giving the public a full accounting. With enough fear and made-up war powers Obama might pull it off but, fortunately, America has had enough of that.

I am inclined to agree.

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Tags: 9/11 Commission, Bush administration, torture, war crimes

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