The Obama administration is delaying by a week its release of an internal CIA report on the agency's Bush-era secret detention and interrogation program. ...more

June 20, 2009

A growing chorus of critics is demanding the creation of a special commission to "investigate" the Bush administration's alleged abuses of power, especially prosecution of the war on terrorism. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy called for a "truth commission," and House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. has introduced legislation to establish a National Commission on Presidential War Powers and Civil Liberties. ...more

February 23, 2009

In one of the first acts of his presidency, Barack Obama fulfilled a campaign promise and reversed the most disputed counterterrorism policies of the Bush administration. He signed executive orders closing the Guantanamo detention camp within a year, ending the CIA's secret prisons and requiring interrogators to use only methods prescribed in the Army Field Manual. ...more

February 13, 2009

The Senate confirmed a cluster of President Barack Obama's nominees to government posts on Thursday, including his secretaries of housing and transportation and members of his economic and environmental teams. But his picks for attorney general and deputy defense secretary remained mired by questions over interrogation methods and ethics. ...more

January 22, 2009

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama began overhauling U.S. treatment of terror suspects Thursday, signing orders to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center, review military war crimes trials and ban the harshest interrogation methods. ...more

January 22, 2009

President-elect Barack Obama is preparing to issue an executive order his first week in office - and perhaps his first day - to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, according to two presidential transition team advisers. ...more

January 12, 2009

In a nostalgic final news conference, President George W. Bush defended his record vigorously and at times sentimentally Monday - and admitted mistakes, too, including his optimistic Iraq speech before a giant "Mission Accomplished" banner in 2003. ...more

January 12, 2009

Nearly seven years after President Bush declared an "extraordinary emergency" that empowered him to bring terrorists before military judges, Osama bin Laden's former driver is slated to go on trial today in the first test of whether that system can dispense fair and impartial justice. ...more

July 21, 2008

The military trainers who came to Guantanamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of "Coercive Management Techniques" for possible use on prisoners, including "Sleep Deprivation," "Prolonged Constraint" and "Exposure." ...more

July 2, 2008

The Pentagon in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks pursued abusive interrogation techniques once favored by such U.S. enemies as North Korea and Vietnam, despite stern warnings by several military lawyers that the methods were cruel and even illegal, according to a Senate investigation. ...more

June 18, 2008