Obama to continue Clinton era rendition program

NY Times:

The Obama administration will continue the Bush administration’s practice of sending terror suspects to third countries for detention and interrogation, but will monitor their treatment to ensure they are not tortured, administration officials said on Monday.

The administration officials, who announced the changes on condition that they not be identified, said that unlike the Bush administration, they would give the State Department a larger role in assuring that transferred detainees would not be abused.

“The emphasis will be on insuring that individuals will not face torture if they are sent over overseas,” said one administration official, adding that no detainees will be sent to countries that are known to conduct abusive interrogations.

But human rights advocates condemned the decision, saying it would permit the transfer of prisoners to countries with a history of torture and that promises of humane treatment, called “diplomatic assurances,” were no protection against abuse.

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Imagine how those same human rights wackos would have reacted to Al Gore's concerns about human rights when the Clinton administration started the program--"Screw them. They are terrorist."

If you read the entire story you will find no mention of the Clinton rendition program which continued basically unchanged under the Bush administration. But that would not fit the story line of how Obama and the Democrats are so much more compassionate toward terrorist.

Personally, I think Clinton and Bush probably had a better handle on dealing with these people. The Times fact checkers need to do a better job of using their own search programs on the origins of "rendition."