Yesterday witnesses called to articulate Republican opposition to Patrick Leahy's proposed "Truth Commission," which would explore Bush administration abuses relating to detention, torture, and illegal surveillance, said that the commission would be a bad idea and that if laws were broken the Justice Department should simply pursue prosecutions. A "Truth Commission," they argued, was just an attempt to needlessly sully the reputations of well-meaning government officials without a trial. "What many advocates of a 'truth commission' seem to have in mind is not simply an exercise in gathering facts but in assessing blame," said Jeremy Rabkin from George Mason University.
Rabkin further argued, "If actual crimes were committed by officials of the Bush administration, there is no reason at all why they should not be prosecuted in the ordinary way we prosecute crimes.” I can't help thinking of the irony of people called upon to represent the Republican position arguing that our legal system, having been designated by Bush officials as so crippled that it "couldn't handle" the prosecution of suspected terrorists, is now the only fair method of getting to the bottom of illegal behavior by Bush administration officials. Because while locking people up indefinitely without trial is completely ethical, potentially sullying someone's reputation by revealing their involvement in illegal abuses of power is really unfair.
Daphne Evitar, in her excellent take, writes that "Oddly, it was the Democrats at the hearing who were arguing for a softer but broader fact-finding approach." Republicans are essentially bluffing: they're betting on the idea that Eric Holder and Barack Obama meant it when they said they were interested in "looking forward" and that they have little interest in actually prosecuting former Bush officials for crimes related to torture, detention, and illegal surveillance. Pushing for prosecution looks to them like the safer option, precisely because they believe it's less likely to happen. It's also notable that, according to Evitar, "only three senators on the Judiciary Committee asked questions, and only five showed up – and some didn’t even stay for the entire hearing."
The lack of comprehensive public records on what exactly was done and why prevents there from being meaningful and lasting policy changes that prevent such things from happening again. Not taking an extensive look at what was done essentially puts these tactics "back in the refrigerator" where a future administration, even this one, can decide that they feel like using them again. Obama's executive orders were an important move, but Congress should really needs to make the kind of lasting reforms that will prevent these such abuses from happening again in the future.
To do that, we need to know exactly what happened. I'm also not sure why we're only talking about Bush administration officials here--it seems to me that if the commission occurs, Congress' behavior should be scrutinized as well.
-- A. Serwer
