Monday, July 13, 2009

The US needs a truth and reconciliation inquiry

By Rupert Cornwell
The Independent

"Dick Cheney may be out of office, harbouring no future ambitions other than writing his memoirs. But as this latest row involving the secrecy-obsessed former vice-president and the CIA demonstrates, he casts scarcely less of a shadow over the Obama administration than he did over that of George W Bush before him.

The charge that he directly ordered the agency to conceal from Congress a secret counterterrorism programme is potentially extremely serious. That it was made by none other than the CIA's present director Leon Panetta, who has before defended the agency's past behaviour, makes it more serious still.......

The White House has so far rejected demands for a South African-style truth and reconciliation commission to examine what happened. But for how much longer?"

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