US senator wants probe of Bush-era abuses

Chair of Judiciary Comm. proposes “truth commission”
US senator wants probe of Bush-era abuses

Republican resistance

President Barack Obama said he had not seen Senator Leahy's proposal

WASHINGTON (Agencies, AlArabiya.net)

A top United States senator called Monday for the creation of a "truth commission" to probe alleged abuses under former President George W. Bush, including the promotion of war in Iraq, detainee treatment, and wiretapping without a warrant.

Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said he wanted to heal what he called sharp political divides under Bush and to prevent future abuses. "I'm doing this not to humiliate people or punish people but to get the truth out," he said.

Obama said at the first press conference of his young presidency that he had not seen the proposal from Leahy and would have a look at it—“but my general orientation is to say let's get it right moving forward."

“If there are clear instances of wrongdoing…people should be prosecuted just like any ordinary citizen," said the president.

" If there are clear instances of wrongdoing…people should be prosecuted just like any ordinary citizen "
President ObamaLeahy compared his proposed panel to South Africa's post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and stressed, “We need to come to a shared understanding of the failures of the recent past."

"Rather than vengeance, we need a fair-minded pursuit of what actually happened. Sometimes the best way to move forward is getting to the truth, finding out what happened, so we can make sure it does not happen again," said Leahy in a speech at Georgetown University on restoring trust in the justice system.

The Vermont senator said he wanted to chart a middle way between those who want to prosecute Bush-era figures and those who want to wipe the slate clean.

"One path to that goal would be a reconciliation process and truth commission. We could develop and authorize a person or group of people universally recognized as fair minded, and without axes to grind," said the senator, who has called the Bush-era scandals at the Justice Department as "the worst since Watergate."

" Rather than vengeance, we need a fair-minded pursuit of what actually happened "
Senator Leahy"People would be invited to come forward and share their knowledge and experiences, not for purposes of constructing criminal indictments, but to assemble the facts," said Leahy, a frequent Bush critic.

Obama, who suggested shortly before he took office in January that he did not favor prosecuting Bush administration officials over their counterterrorism policies, said on Monday his administration would seek to uphold "our traditions of rule of law and due process."

He also said: "I want to pull everybody together, including, by the way, all the members of the intelligence community who have done things the right way and have been working hard to protect America and I think sometimes are painted with a broad brush without adequate information. "


Republican resistance

" If every administration started to re-examine what every prior administration did, there would be no end to it "
Arlen Specter But some Republicans and intelligence officials have resisted any suggestion of broad inquiries into accusations against the Bush administration, saying it would be a distraction or weaken morale in the fight against terrorism.

"If every administration started to re-examine what every prior administration did, there would be no end to it. This is not Latin America," the Judiciary committee's top-ranking Republican, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, told reporters last month.

President Barack Obama, who suggested shortly before he took office in January that he did not favor prosecuting Bush administration officials over their counterterrorism policies, said on Monday his administration would seek to uphold "our traditions of rule of law and due process."