And closing Gitmo within a year.
From our growing Not An Auspicious Beginning file: “Obama Issues Directives on Detainees, Interrogation, Guantanamo,” from FOXNews, January 22 (thanks to all who sent this in):
WASHINGTON — President Obama, putting his executive pen in his left hand to overrule eight years of Bush administration policy, signed “several” executive orders Thursday, including ones affecting national security and abortion.
The national security orders mandate that interrogation techniques in the Army Field Manual be used by all intelligence and law enforcement services; call for a task force to look at closing the detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, within the year; and order a strategy be developed for handling detainees in the future. The presidential directive also orders a stay in the case of Ali Al-Marri, the only person being held by the military as an enemy combatant on U.S. soil.
The executive order says everyone in custody should be questioned under the Army Field Manual, which is intended for honorable combatants, meaning POWs in a military conflict. The rule would prevent trained interrogators at the CIA from using lawful interrogation techniques against terrorists who have been trained to withstand Army Field Manual techniques.
According to sources in the law enforcement community, the executive order on interrogation does not declare “enhanced interrogation techniques” to be torture; the order is silent on that.
“This allows for a lot of flexibility, a lot of wiggle room,” said one source.
While the administration has insisted on one interrogation standard, one source says they are thinking about assembling a group within the next 60 days to make recommendations on a set of separate techniques for the intelligence community to use.
White House counsel Greg Craig acknowledged late Wednesday that the administration will have to establish a panel to make recommendations to address intelligence community concerns.
Separately, according to a draft of the Guantanamo order, “the prompt disposition” of detainee cases should “precede” the closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison. Whether that means the detainees have to be tried if possible before the closure is still unclear….
Where will they put them? Anyone volunteer to put one of them up?