The New York Times runs a story about Muhammad Saad Iqbal, who claims he was tortured by the Egyptian government at the behest of the Bush administration:
But the full stories of individual detainees like Mr. Iqbal are only now emerging after years in which they were shuttled around the globe under the Bush administration's system of extraordinary rendition, which used foreign countries to interrogate and detain terrorism suspects in sites beyond the reach of American courts.
Likewise, the AP reported yesterday on the choice of Leon Panetta to head the CIA:
Obama is sending an unequivocal message that controversial administration policies approving harsh interrogations, waterboarding and extraordinary renditions - the secret transfer of prisoners to other governments with a history of torture - and warrantless wiretapping are over, said several officials.
I think the press is forgetting that it was Panetta's old boss Bill Clinton who first approved the use of extraordinary rendition, and he did so by approving a presidential directive that authorized the CIA to hand terror suspects over to...the Egyptian Mukhabarat. There is a tendency for the left to imagine that the Bush administration represents a clean break with the previously lawful and humane history of the executive branch of government, and that the Obama administration will represent a return to that better tradition.
In truth, there is considerable continuity between the Clinton administration policies and those that followed, as there almost certainly will be as this new administration takes up the reins -- and Panetta will presumably enter office with some hands on experience in the kind of rendition to which Muhammad Saad Iqbal claims he was subjected.
