US President Barack Obama is facing accusation of creating impunity framework for former officials implicated in authorising torture. “The (former president George W.) Bush administration constructed a legal framework for torture,” Jameel Jaffer, National Security Project Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), said in a statement. “Now the Obama administration is constructing a legal framework for impunity.”
Obama has promised to close the US notorious detention centre Guantanamo and secret CIA prisons. He has also vowed to scrap all harsh interrogation techniques authorized by the Bush administration against terror suspects. “But this administration is also shielding Bush administration officials from civil liability, criminal investigation and even public scrutiny for their role in authorizing torture,” Jaffer said.
Last April, Obama said interrogators who had used waterboarding on terror suspects will not face prosecution. He also released Bush-era memos specifying that the practice did not constitute torture. The Bush administration has sanctioned the use of aggressive interrogation techniques, including waterboarding and sleeping deprivation, against suspects. It was embroiled in shocking detainee abuse scandals in the notorious Guantanamo detention center, Iraq and Afghanistan. The Bush administration also authorised the CIA to operate a network of secret detention centres in different world countries and fly detainees to countries where they were tortured.