flashback …. ‘torturer-in-chief’

Newsweek (January 2009): The End of Torture: Obama banishes Bush’s interrogation tactics

In the first sign of friction within his new administration, President Obama overruled the pleas of senior U.S. intelligence officials and signed a new executive order that bars the CIA from using harsh interrogation methods beyond those permitted by the U.S. military …The executive orders represented a clean break with Bush administration policies and won quick praise from human-rights groups….

In perhaps his most far-reaching and potentially controversial move, Obama ordered that the CIA immediately cease using any interrogation techniques that are not already authorized in the U.S. Army Field Manual. He also ordered the CIA to close, “as expeditiously as possible,” any secret detention facilities overseas and begin immediate compliance with Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which prohibits “humiliating and degrading” treatment of prisoners.

The interrogation directive represents the sharpest departure from Bush-era policies and was the subject of vigorous internal debate among Obama advisers….….senior U.S. intelligence officials told Obama’s advisers that they still needed the flexibility to use some interrogation methods not permitted by the military … but in the end, Obama’s review team rejected their arguments and questioned the premise that such methods were necessary….

…In a stinging rebuke to Bush administration legal policies, Obama’s order states that U.S. government officials involved in interrogations may no longer rely on any Justice Department legal memos written between September 11, 2001, and Jan. 20, 2009. Such memos – many of them still secret and the subject of fierce controversy during the Bush years – were, with one stroke of Obama’s pen, made invalid.

Full article here