Bin Laden Could Be Thinking – ‘Mission Accomplished’

The Bush Administration official in charge of reviewing practices at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp has told the Washington Post that the U.S. tortured a Saudi national.

“We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani,” said Susan J. Crawford, in her first interview since being named convening authority of military commissions by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in February 2007. “His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that’s why I did not refer the case” for prosecution.

Crawford, a retired judge who served as general counsel for the Army during the Reagan administration and as Pentagon inspector general when Dick Cheney was secretary of defense, is the first senior Bush administration official responsible for reviewing practices at Guantanamo to publicly state that a detainee was tortured.

Earlier this week, an Obama transition official leaked that President-elect Barack Obama may issue an executive order to close the Guantanamo detention center.  A day later, the Pentagon, oblivious to the signal sent by the Obama team trotted out numbers alleging as many as 61 former inmates at Guantanamo had “returned” to their terrorist ways.

President George W. Bush and V.P. DICK Cheney have spent the last three weeks on a farewell tour of sorts doing interviews on their eight years in office.  Over the past five years, evidence has mounted that Bush Administration at the highest levels essentially sanctioned torture by CIA and military interrogators.  In the face of that evidence, neither the president or vice-president have admitted mistakes in their prosecution of the war on terror.  Today, a very credible member of their administration did so for them.

The Bushies are leaving office and trying their hardest to build a case for a positive legacy.  What many around the world will remember is torture, black sites and renditions.  In the wake of one of America’s most trying times – 9/11 – our leaders succumbed to their baser human instincts and turned their backs on the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution.  They created a climate of fear rather than one of strength of purpose.  They tore at the unique American fabric in ways we may not even yet realize.  In some respects, Osama bin Laden must be thinking, “Mission Accomplished.”