Earlier today, The Human Rights Watch released a report entitled “ Getting Away With Torture” urging the Obama administration to take action towards an investigation of the former Bush Administration. The report asserts that George W. Bush was responsible for ordering torture methods including waterboarding, as well as authorizing the "illegal CIA secret detention and renditions programmes, under which detainees were held incommunicado and frequently transferred to countries such as Egypt and Syria where they were likely to be tortured".

The report also implicates former vice-president Dick Cheney, former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and former CIA director George Tenet for sanctioning torture and war crimes. Donald Rumsfeld admitted that "Approved illegal interrogation methods and closely followed the interrogation of Mohamed al-Qahtani, who was subjected to a six-week regime of coercive interrogation at Guantanamo that cumulatively appears to have amounted to torture".

Mr. Bush has remained callow when being questioned about torturing methods such as waterboarding, maintaining that his fellow advisers condoned its use as legal on several Guantanamo prisoners.

Obama has also been criticized for his lack of action as well as failing to meet responsibilities as an administration to launch a full-fledged investigation into these allegations. Reed Brody, the author of the HRW report notes that evidence for the case continues to grow and the Obama administration continues to neglect their responsibilities. "It's become abundantly clear that there is no longer any movement on the part of the Obama administration to live up to its responsibilities to investigate these cases when the evidence just keeps piling up. Just this year we have the different admissions by President Bush that he authorized waterboarding," he said.

Unfortunately if these accusations continue to be taken lightly by the Obama administration, US efforts to demand justice in the face of human rights violations in countries such as Libya will be seriously weakened.  

"Getting Away With Torture" 

http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2011/07/12/getting-away-torture-0