Resource Type:

Report-Paper

Posted On: Oct 21, 2008

Posted By: Heather Hamilton

URL:

http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/media/usls/2008/alert/348/index.htm

Description:

Both parties' presidential candidates have rejected the use of torture and agree that America's reputation has been damaged by the Bush Administration's policies authorizing abuse of prisoners. Human Rights First's plan - "How to End Torture and Cruel Treatment: Blueprint for the Next Administration" - offers a strategy for the next president to end torture and official cruelty and to invest instead in effective and humane intelligence gathering.

Human Rights First's three-stage blueprint sets forth a series of concrete recommendations for actions beginning on day one and continuing through the first year of the next administration, including:

* Expressly renouncing torture and official cruelty in the president's inaugural address and announcing a single standard of humane treatment across all government agencies based on the military's Golden Rule: We must not engage in conduct that we would consider unlawful if perpetrated by the enemy against captured Americans.
* Revoking all White House, Justice Department, Defense Department and CIA orders and memoranda authorizing or justifying cruel treatment or secret detention.
* Ordering the National Security Advisor to undertake a comprehensive interagency review of all torture memoranda and documents and to make these documents public, to the greatest extent possible, so that Congress and the public fully understand how laws mandating humane treatment were circumvented.
* Declaring a moratorium on renditions that have sent detainees from U.S. custody to torture in other countries, and direct a comprehensive review of rendition practices and the use of diplomatic assurances.
* Strengthening counterterrorism efforts by directing the Secretary of Defense and the Director of National Intelligence to undertake a comprehensive review and reform of U.S. government human intelligence gathering practices, including interrogation.
* Appointing a nonpartisan commission, modeled on the 9/11 Commission, to investigate the facts and circumstances relating to U.S. government detention and interrogation operations since September 11, 2001, and make public a report on its findings.