The Truth Will Out?

It feels like the release of the torture memos may have created a new interest in exploring the war crimes that were committed in our name.

Over at Hullabaloo, dday says:

I don't think you can debate whether or not to have an investigation on the Bush torture regime anymore, because the investigation is happening.

The press, finally, seems to be digging in. The Washington Post reports:

Condoleezza Rice, John D. Ashcroft and at least 10 other top Bush officials reviewed and approved as early as the summer of 2002 the CIA's use of harsh interrogation methods on detainees at secret prisons, including waterboarding that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has described as illegal torture, according to a detailed timeline furnished by Holder to the Senate Intelligence Committee....

Rice gave a key early approval, when, as Bush's national security adviser, she met on July 17, 2002, with the CIA's then-director, George J. Tenet, and "advised that the CIA could proceed with its proposed interrogation of Abu Zubaydah," subject to approval by the Justice Department, according to the timeline. Rice and four other White House officials had been briefed two months earlier on "alternative interrogation methods, including waterboarding," it states. Waterboarding is a technique that simulates drowning.

Note that this occurred prior to the Bybee memo which gave legal cover to the torture.

Dday concludes:

It's clear the President doesn't want the responsibility for future investigations. He apparently quashed the idea of a Presidential-level Torture Commission. But he cannot stop the wheels now in motion. Congress will have their crack at an investigation, and the media will return to the issue. The Attorney General will have to make his own independent judgment. And the truth may yet out.

I hope so.