WASHINGTON – The Bush administration drafted amendments to the War Crimes Act that would retroactively protect policymakers from possible criminal charges for authorizing any humiliating and degrading treatment of detainees, according to lawyers who have seen the proposal.
The move by the administration is the latest effort to deal with treatment of those taken into custody in the war on terror.
At issue are interrogations carried out by the CIA, and the degree to which harsh tactics such as water-boarding were authorized by administration officials. A separate law, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, applies to the military.
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“I think what this bill can do is in effect immunize past crimes. That's why it's so dangerous,” said a third attorney, Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice.
Fidell said the initiative is “not just protection of political appointees, but also CIA personnel who led interrogations.”
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