Panetta's Answers

While Obama's selection of Leon Panetta for CIA Director was initially hailed by liberals as a rather impressive move, it appears that we all should've waited for Panetta's confirmation hearing to get too excited. The Panetta who wrote that "there is no middle ground" on torture issues said at his hearing “If we had a ticking bomb situation, and obviously, whatever was being used I felt was not sufficient, I would not hesitate to go to the president of the United States and request whatever additional authority I would need.” The man who wrote "We are sworn to govern by the rule of law, not by brute force" trotted out the same tired BS used to make the US seem to have clean hands when it comes to renditions - from the LA Times:

"The agency no longer will send prisoners to its own secret detention
sites, which are being closed, Panetta said. But, 'there is a second kind of
rendition, where individuals are turned over to a country for purposes of
questioning,' he said. 'There were efforts by the CIA to seek and to receive
assurances that those individuals would not be mistreated.'
Panetta made clear that those renditions would continue, largely unchanged from Bush-era policies."

Panetta's willingness to waver on these issues - and commitment to asking for legal authorization of coercive interrogation if he wants to - is nothing like an end to torture. The Obama administration reserves the right to revert to the past. Panetta's wavering points us to structural problems in the process by which torture is authorized that make it difficult to end torture for good in the US.

The first issue, as I see it, is that the decision to torture rests with three people - the President, the D/CIA, and the AG. The process former AG Mukasey described in a letter to Sen. Leahy (read here) still exists. Obama's executive order does nothing to alter this -

"There is a defined process by which any new method is proposed for
authorization. That process would begin with the CIA Director's determination
that the addition of the technique was required for the program. Then, the
Attorney General would have to determine that the use of the technique is lawful
under the particular conditions and circumstances proposed. Finally, the
President would have to approve of the use of the technique as requested by the
CIA Director and as deemed lawful by the Attorney General."

And in fact reinforces it (from the Executive Order Ensuring Lawful Interrogations):

"(c) Interpretations of Common Article 3 and the Army Field
Manual. From this day forward, unless the Attorney General with
appropriate consultation provides further guidance, officers,
employees, and other agents of the United States Government may, in conducting
interrogations, act in reliance upon Army Field Manual 2-22.3, but may
not, in conducting interrogations, rely upon any interpretation of the law
governing interrogation -- including interpretations of Federal criminal
laws, the Convention Against Torture, Common Article 3, Army Field
Manual 2-22.3, and its predecessor document, Army Field
Manual 34-52 -- issued by the Department of Justice between
September 11, 2001, and January 20, 2009." [emphasis supplied]

Three people in the US government can change torture policy, whenever they so choose. And our national lack of interest in prosecuting Bush shows those in power that they have nothing to fear if they do choose to torture. We will defend poorly written legal opinions - as Panetta did - as long as they come from the people in the right positions inside the halls of power.

Vesting three individuals with the power to abuse and torture detainees is not an effective end to torture. We must agitate for:

1. transparency. As a state Senator, Obama pushed for a law requiring all police interrogations to be videotaped. This would be a great device by which to ensure our operatives are in compliance with the law.

2. prosecutions. Sorry, my faith in "the rule of law" has been kind of busted over the past 8 years. The efforts people in the Obama administration have been making to legitimize Bush policy and Bush legal opinion give me little confidence in their commitment to the rule of law - for example, Panetta: “Those individuals operated pursuant to a legal opinion… [and they] ought not to be prosecuted or investigated, [since] they acted pursuant to the law as it was presented by the attorney general.” Protecting Bush legal opinions only makes me wonder if you are doing so to preserve that type of power for yourself, in the future. Investigations and prosecutions of our little band of torturers are necessary to dispel these doubts.

3. new process. I believe that a law must be passed in Congress providing for the use of the AFM, minus its coercive provisions and Appendix M, in all of our federal agencies. Executive orders - which can be reversed at will - are not sufficient. Let Congress pass a law dictating anti-torture interrogation policy - and when a President wants to go against it, they can have it out in the courts. The right wing isn't going anywhere - and I do not want to see them undo Obama's executive orders (nor do I want to see Obama undo his own orders) in 2012, or 2016. Whether we torture or not should not be a political question - D/CIA and AG are both political appointees, and the President is of course elected.

There is much, much more to be said about Panetta's confirmation hearing. Guantánamo has apparently gone to shit: see Invictus and TalkLeft. Who in the Obama administration is going to step up and enforce the executive orders? Because this:

"But first, Bradley, a US military attorney for 20 years, will reveal that Mohamed, 31, is dying in his Guantánamo cell and that conditions inside the Cuban prison camp have deteriorated badly since Barack Obama took office. Fifty of its 260 detainees are on hunger strike and, say witnesses, are being strapped to chairs and force-fed, with those who resist being beaten. At least 20 are described as being so unhealthy they are on a 'critical list', according to Bradley."

Does not sound like this:

(a) Common Article 3 Standards as a Minimum Baseline. Consistent with the requirements of the Federal torture statute, 18 U.S.C. 2340-2340A, section 1003 of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, 42 U.S.C. 2000dd, the Convention Against Torture, Common Article 3, and other laws regulating the treatment and interrogation of individuals detained in any armed conflict, such persons shall in all
circumstances be treated humanely and shall not be subjected to violence to life
and person (including murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment, and
torture), nor to outrages upon personal dignity (including humiliating
and degrading treatment), whenever such individuals are in the custody or
under the effective control of an officer, employee, or other agent of the
United States Government or detained within a facility owned, operated, or
controlled by a department or agency of the United States.

(Force-feeding detainees has also been described here, amongst other places).

There needs to be immediate action on the part of the Obama administration to investigate these allegations and prosecute those who continue to mishandle detainees. The conduct of the Joint Task Force at Guantánamo appears to be in flagrant violation of US law.

Obama's Laws

Although Obama's executive orders pertaining to rendition may permit such renditions as would violate international law (in other words, renditions outside of extradition agreements - see Valtin's comment to this post), those orders are presently domestic law.

Therefore, they would be binding upon all renditions performed. So when Spencer Ackerman writes today, of the Panetta nomination:

"For instance, the orders demand the CIA shut down the so-called 'Black Sites,'
or secret prisons run by the agency or through its foreign-intelligence
partners. But they do allow for CIA to hold detainees on 'a short-term,
transitory basis' before transferring them to another government agency. But how
long should that period be? Hours? Days? Weeks? What procedures should be in
place to determine humane treatment of those detainees during a time when
they’re not likely to have access to human-rights monitors like the
International Committee of the Red Cross?"

It seems to me that Obama's executive order, Sec 4. part b, suggests that, if a detainee were to be rendered to another country's government, before passing to that country, their name would have to be released to the International Committee of the Red Cross - and the Red Cross would also be given access to the detainee:

"All departments and agencies of the Federal Government shall provide the
International Committee of the Red Cross with notification of, and timely access
to, any individual detained in any armed conflict in the custody or under the
effective control of an officer, employee, or other agent of the United States
Government or detained within a facility owned, operated, or controlled by a
department or agency of the United States Government, consistent with Department of Defense regulations and policies."

Hilzoy makes this very point: "His executive order also precludes any kind of secret detention of prisoners, and thus 'secret abductions and transfers of prisoners'...Note that this has no exceptions for short-term detainees whom we quickly hand off to someone else." The executive order states that the International Committee of the Red Cross will have access to any individual detained - any and all. No more "Camp NAMA"s. The International Committee of the Red Cross will apparently have a record of our detainees that matches, in very important ways, our record. Accountability in real-time (hypothetically), at least when it comes to the subject of our detainees in our custody.

This is all well and good. But other measures could improve accountability considerably. I would think it none too difficult to deceive/mislead the International Comm. of the Red Cross. As an Illinois State Senator, Obama pushed for a law to videotape all police interrogations. He could presumably issue an executive order dictating the same in all of our detainee interrogations. All of them - interrogations in temporary holding cells, interrogations domestically.

But is a videotaped interrogation much consolation to someone who has been kidnapped? Let me go out on a limb here and say NO.

I plan to post on the legal issues regarding rendition later this week. Unfortunately I don't have the time to give to the problem that it deserves today. Apologies for the delay.

An Obama Rendition

I suppose Greg Miller's LA Times article that I posted about yesterday answered my question - yes, there will be renditions under Obama. The earlier source for this information was Rob Winder, writing for Al Jazeera. Winder provides a more specific definition of extraordinary rendition than Miller does, writing: "Extraordinary renditions, where "terror" suspects are apprehended and transferred from countries by US intelligence services or their allies, without going through any legal process, could still be carried out." Michael Scheuer (hardly an anti-torture advocate) makes an interesting point about the terror suspects that will be shuffled around:

Michael Scheuer, a former CIA agent who was head of the organisation's Bin Laden
Unit in the 1990's, told Al Jazeera it was not clear what would now happen
to suspects detained as part of the rendition process after the secret prisons
had been closed and other countries off-limits due to torture claims.
"I don't know where they would be taken ... but they wouldn't be brought here [to
the US]," says Scheuer.
"Most of those detained have been arrested by foreign intelligence agencies so a US court could not be sure they hadn't been roughed up at all and that documents had not been tampered with."

Well, at least they won't be tortured now...right? My concern is that "gaining assurances" could become an empty process used only for CYA purposes - a look-the-other-way type process. After all, we monitor the human rights records of other countries constantly. The difficulty of gaining assurances countries won't torture should not be great. Otherwise, what are we paying all those people at the State Department to do?

I believe it is important for the Obama team to make clear that the policy they want to pursue is a sea-change from the Bush Administration. For instance, Richard Clarke in his article "The Confusion Over Renditions" makes excellent points about the right kind of rendition - namely, that rendition is legal (or can be) - "The Supreme Court has even ruled that renditions occurring without the cooperation of the nation of arrest are legal if the accused is expeditiously brought into the US justice system." The language of Obama's executive order limiting CIA detention to a very brief time frame should also limit him to performing these narrowly-defined, legal renditions. Esp. in conjunction with his executive order demanding conformity to the Convention Against Torture.

This is, and must be, different from Bush-era policy. But Obama must make that clear. His embrace of rendition must not impair his ability to investigate the policies of the Bush years. People are already conflating Dubya and Obama rendition policies (and since rendition comes in many varieties, this isn't hard to do). This sort of misinformation certainly doesn't serve Obama's interests. Declassify the Bush-era documents, question the players - expose the Bush cronies for what they are. And set up a system for your own renditions that guarantees we are following the rule of law.

Trusting the People In Power

Greg Miller at the LA Times gives us a somewhat disturbing story today. To quote:

"Under executive orders issued by Obama recently, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States.

Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said that the rendition program might be poised to play an expanded role going forward because it was the main remaining mechanism -- aside from Predator missile strikes -- for taking suspected terrorists off the street.

...

'Obviously you need to preserve some tools -- you still have to go after
the bad guys,' said an Obama administration official, speaking on condition of
anonymity when discussing the legal reasoning. 'The legal advisors working on
this looked at rendition. It is controversial in some circles and kicked up a
big storm in Europe. But if done within certain parameters, it is an acceptable
practice.'

One provision in one of Obama’s orders appears to preserve the CIA's ability to detain and interrogate terrorism suspects as long as they are not held long-term. The little-noticed provision states that the instructions to close the CIA's secret
prison sites 'do not refer to facilities used only to hold people on a short-term, transitory basis.'

...

The decision to preserve the program did not draw major protests, even
among human rights groups. Leaders of such organizations attribute that to a
sense that nations need certain tools to combat terrorism.

'Under limited circumstances, there is a legitimate place' for renditions,
said Tom Malinowski, the Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch.
'What I heard loud and clear from the president's order was that they want to
design a system that doesn't result in people being sent to foreign dungeons to
be tortured -- but that designing that system is going to take some time.'

Malinowski said he had urged the Obama administration to stipulate that
prisoners could be transferred only to countries where they would be guaranteed
a public hearing in an official court. 'Producing a prisoner before a real court
is a key safeguard against torture, abuse and disappearance,' Malinowski
said."

The problem with renditions goes beyond whether or not the prisoner is directly shipped off to a country that will torture him/her. It's a problem that has to do with accountability as well. If the abductions are secret, how will we know those abducted get their day in court? Obama preserving rendition also makes it more difficult to pinpoint the errors of the Bush-era CIA. Unless Team Obama is willing to go very public with their hair-splitting, Hayden & Tenet just got a lot of cover. Miller's article is pretty flattering to, and uncritical of, Hayden. For example:

The CIA has long maintained that it does not turn prisoners over to other
countries without first obtaining assurances that the detainees will not be
mistreated.

In a 2007 speech, https:// www.cia.gov/news-information/speeches-testimony/2007/general-haydens-remarks-at-the-council-on-foreign-relations.html "> www.cia.gov/news-information/speeches-testimony/2007/general-haydens-remarks-at-the-council-on-foreign-relations.html the agency had to make a determination in every case "that it is less, rather than more, likely that the individual will be tortured." He added that the CIA
sought "true assurances" and that "we're not looking to shave this 49-51."

Even so, the rendition program became a target of fierce criticism during
the Bush administration as a series of cases surfaced.

That is a completely ridiculous assertion that has been disputed by many. Hell, the whole premise of Reuel Marc Gerecht's op-ed of Dec 2008 is that we know which countries torture, and we might just want to keep our options open regarding them. And later from Miller:

"But U.S. intelligence officials contend that the EU report greatly
exaggerated the scale of the program and that most of the flights documented by
the Europeans involved moving supplies and CIA personnel, not prisoners.

Instead, recent comments by Hayden suggest that the program has been used
to move no more than a handful of prisoners in recent years and that the total
is in the 'midrange two figures' since the Sept. 11 attacks."

Well, Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann found evidence of "117 renditions that have occurred since September 11, 2001." They continue "When we excluded renditions to Afghanistan, CIA secret prisons (or "black sites"), Guantanamo, or American custody, we found 53 cases of extraordinary rendition. All individuals for whom the rendition destination is known were sent to countries that have been criticized by the State Department’s annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, which document 'torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.'" But, eh, how can a non-CIA driven storyline possibly be true?

Another issue with renditions is that they aren't good for much of anything - Miller's intelligence source admits they are in some ways the "worst option." Again, the Abu Omar rendition is a great example of the stupidity of renditions. I'll refer again to Matthew Cole's excellent piece, Blowback:

But today, as they spoke over coffee, there was something Lady couldn’t
tell Megale: A team of CIA officers were tracking Omar as he walked from his
home to noon prayers, intending to abduct him, put him on a plane, and send him
to Egypt for “questioning,” and that the only reason Lady had scheduled today’s
meeting in the first place was to keep an eye on Megale, in case something went
wrong.

In fairness, it was a plan Lady never believed in. He thought the intelligence being gathered would, in a few months, be enough to ensure Omar’s arrest and conviction; why put a promising joint investigation (not to mention Lady’s relationship with Megale) at risk by doing something as provocative as kidnapping a man off the street in a major Italian city? Progress was being made; Lady was preaching patience.

So rendition was a stupid alternative - it disrupted the progress being made between two cooperating intelligence services. And why did this rendition happen? Again from Matthew Cole:

"Of course, this operation was one that he—and CIA leadership—had been pushing
for all along, to 'show the wimps in the NSC and the House Intelligence
Committee that the agency didn’t need help from foreign governments,' said
the former official."

Greeeat. I am glad the United States intelligence agencies will still hold a place for that kind of mentality.

If you don't have the evidence to try a terrorism suspect, what good is done by whisking them away to another country, to "stand trial"? Or, of course, that may not be the point.

Fear-mongering At Its Finest

Yesterday Alberto Gonazles held forth about torture and prosecutions on NPR. Kate Klonick has the story. Here is Gonzales' statement:

“'One needs to be careful in making a blanket pronouncement like that,' Gonzales
said, suggesting that it might affect the 'morale and dedication' of intelligence officials and lawyers who are attempting to make cases against terrorism suspects.
He said people he knows at the CIA have told him that agents there 'no longer have any interest in doing anything controversial.' And that, Gonzales asserted, means they 'won’t be doing what they need to be doing' to protect the country.

I'm guessing the people that Gonzales knows at the CIA - who are still willing to confide in him, seeing how his crap memos put many at the CIA in legal jeopardy - are probably not big Obama boosters to begin with. And if the CIA truly waterboarded only three times, I doubt Holder calling 'em like he sees 'em is going to massively depress morale.

Nobody has a problem with the CIA taking risks. But it seems simple enough that they should not be allowed to torture. I suspect its Gonzales' morale that is more deeply affected than anyone else's.

Case in point:

“'It’s a great leap forward in terms of respect for human rights,' said John Kiriakou, the retired CIA official who supervised the early interrogation of Al Qaeda detainee Abu Zubaydah in 2002. 'From the very beginning, the CIA should not have been in the business of enhanced interrogation techniques and detentions.' CIA interrogators waterboarded Abu Zubaydah, but not while Kiriakou supervised the interrogation.

...

Kiriakou said that the reaction to Obama’s harmonization of interrogations policy would get 'a very positive reaction' inside the CIA. 'There are people at CIA who engaged in what were certified as enhanced [interrogation] techniques, but were never supportive of it,' he said. 'This should make people very happy. No one wants to be in harm’s way [legally]. Despite what the Bush White House and Bush Justice Department said was legal, I think people at the CIA understood that this was not legal and [the techniques] were torture.'
Tyler Drumheller, a former chief of CIA operations in Europe during the Bush administration’s first term, agreed. 'These people aren’t monsters,' Drumheller said. 'They were doing what they were told, and what was the policy of the [Bush]
administration.'” [emphasis supplied]

Yep, sounds like morale was just crushed.

Oh For The Love of God

From War & Piece:

A day before Obama signed executive orders closing Guantánamo Bay and banning
torture, the White House's top lawyer privately indicated to Congress that the new president reserved the right to ignore his own (and any other president's) executive
orders. In a closed-door appearance before the Senate intelligence committee,
White House counsel Gregory Craig was asked whether the president was required by law to follow executive orders. According to people familiar with his remarks, who asked for anonymity when discussing a private meeting, Craig answered that the
administration did not believe he was. The implication: in a national-security
crisis, Obama could deviate from his own rules. A White House official said that
Craig's remarks were being "mischaracterized."

Of course, this is just one of the many reasons that Feinstein's idea of a law codifying the use of the Army Field Manual for interrogations throughout the entire intelligence community is a good one. At least in the limited way of being able to make laws that mean something more than the "get out of jail free" cards that seem so in style in the American presidency. Without question Obama's executive orders must be put into law. Do you trust this gamesmanship for even a second?

I find this disturbing as well:

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said he would not "prejudge the
executive orders of the commission," but said the Army Field Manual would set
the rules for all interrogations now. "The commission has been tasked with
studying any number of different scenarios relating to detainees and
interrogation," Gibbs said. "And I think what's best is to let that happen and
see what happens when they come back."

Again, this is pretty simple. You either follow international law, or you do not. The Special Task Force must not become a private think-tank that decides upon our trespassing upon international law at their whim. How can an administration remain vigiliant against torture when they are leaving the door open to it? Leaving torture in the political realm is a mistake. If the Special Task Force comes back and says, "torture is wrong," a chorus of torture supporters will malign the Task Force. So appointing a panel of super important responsible people isn't going to solve anything, nor solidify the Obama administration's present anti-torture stance. One by one every person in the Task Force will be discredited - no doubt Hillary Clinton will be discredited in particular. It's easy. For God's sake, just say TORTURE IS WRONG. But I guess with Holder being punished by Republicans for doing so, and Blair unwilling to say waterboarding is torture, and Obama not willing to immediately investigate and prosecute Bush for torture, one's options in terms of principles are limited.

What are they thinking by just dragging this out? Feinstein should step in and get a law against torture passed immediately. Glorifying executive power is not the answer to stopping torture. And better to pass a law now, when the Dems have the majority, than to wait until Republicans or another oppositional party can catch up a bit.

Invictus has posted about how the AFM may still codify torture. That is where our argument should be right now - whether the AFM is strict enough. I personally will try to devote more attention to it. But instead of arguing about the AFM, we are currently in a position where, as a sop to Republicans, the door has been left open for torture under the assumption that torture might at some time serve the needs of our country. Where is this assumption being strongly supported? The intelligence community. Why are they supporting it if not to cover their asses for 8 years of criminal mistreatment of detainees?

President Obama's strokes of the pen this week were a great step toward righting our policy. But torture-related issues must be taken out of the realm of the executive branch, and placed squarely into the realm of law that we may all be judged by. Nobody should be able to torture, and whether we do or not should not be dependent upon changing interpretations of executive powers. Torture isn't an issue for the executive branch.

On Going Forward

In The Washington Monthly's Nov/Dec 2008 issue, Charles Homans has an interesting proposal on how to investigate the CIA. He proposes the following:

"We don’t know who exactly destroyed the tapes or what else may have been or is
in danger of being destroyed, but Congress or an investigatory commission might
be able to guard against losing what’s still intact by granting immunity to
interrogators. Establishing the responsibility of officials higher up in the
Bush administration is far more important than prosecuting those who carried out
their actions in the field." [emphasis mine]

This is an interesting concept. I am not in favor of prosecuting interrogators and case officers here in the United States. The case in Milan against Bob Lady & co. targets the wrong people, in my opinion - although it is certainly reasonable that they are being targeted.

But what are the consequences of granting immunity to that many people? How high in the CIA chain of command would you stop? The immunity would have to be conditioned upon cooperation with an investigation. Here it seems possible that a Truth & Reconciliation Commission would work. At higher, policy-making levels, it might not, as Philippe Sands suggests in this NPR interview. If you aren't willing to apologize and assume guilt, the Commission is ineffective.

Homans makes a very good point later:

Even if techniques can’t be disclosed, Congress or a commission could usefully
address the scope and results of the interrogations, something that would be far
harder to block on national security grounds: how many detainees were subjected
to extreme techniques, how many of them were ultimately cleared of wrongdoing,
and whether any useful information was extracted from those who weren’t. Most of
the techniques that interrogators are believed to have derived from the SERE
methods originated with the KGB, which used them to extract false confessions;
ethics and legality notwithstanding, many intelligence veterans have questioned
their usefulness for obtaining accurate information. As president, Obama should
reiterate his campaign statement that "Torture is how you create enemies, not
how you defeat them. Torture is how you get bad information, not good
intelligence." And if the evidence suggests the latter is true, it should be
made public to preempt the next Dick Cheney who suggests otherwise.
[emphasis mine]

The interesting thing about the last point is that even if evidence suggested it was not true, that might not prevent torture from happening again in this country. It would certainly help those who wish to push back on torture advocacy, but there is some sort of superstition held by many in American political circles that torture could work - there could be a time where it was worth doing. For example, Obama's executive order yesterday. While on the whole the order was positive, it nonetheless embraced that "torture could work" feeling. From Greg Sargent:

"But Ratner pointed to the following lines in the executive order that, he said,
provided a possible loophole by creating a Task Force to study the issue:

'The mission of the Special Task Force shall be:
(1) to study and evaluate whether the interrogation practices and techniques in Army Field Manual 2-22.3, when employed by departments or agencies outside the military, provide an appropriate means of acquiring the intelligence necessary to protect the Nation, and, if warranted, to recommend any additional or different guidance for other departments or agencies …'

The key there, Ratner says, is that the exec order appears to allow for an evaluation as to 'whether' — a key word — the Army Field Manual techniques are sufficent to 'protect the nation.' That, he says, allows for the Task Force to find after studying the issue that there may be cases where it’s acceptable to go beyond the Army Field Manual."

As a practical matter, it leaves the door open for torture. It's possible, I suppose, that this is a political ruse designed to demonstrate that torture does not work. But I doubt it. And the Special Task Force should not become our private high court when it comes to matters of torture. This information should all be made public. Discovering, revealing, and discussing the information must all be done in a public context. That is the proper way to move forward.

+++

Over at Talkleft, Edger quotes the film "Judgment at Nuremberg," which establishes the appropriate context:

"What about those of us who knew better, we who knew the words were lies
and worse than lies? Why did we sit silent? Why did we take part? Because we
loved our country. What difference does it make if a few political extremists
lose their rights? What difference does it make if a few racial minorities lose
their rights? It is only a passing phase. It is only a stage we are going
through. It will be discarded sooner or later. Hitler himself will be discarded
-- sooner or later. The country is in danger. We will march out of the shadows!
We will go forward. FORWARD is the great password."

Recalling what Biden said on "This Week" in December.

President Obama Ends CIA Special Program

From NYT. Well done Obama:

As he signed three orders, 16 retired generals and admirals who have fought for
months for a ban on coercive interrogations stood behind him and applauded. The
group, organized to lobby the Obama transition team by the group Human Rights First, did not include any career C.I.A. officers or retirees, participants said.

One of Mr. Obama’s orders requires the C.I.A. to use only the 19 interrogation methods outlined in the Army Field Manual, ending President Bush’s policy of permitting the agency to use some secret methods that went beyond those allowed to the military.

I look forward to reading the Executive Order for this, and for the closing of Guantánamo, later on his website.