Key senator: Create Bush-era 'truth commission'

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-02-10 09:38

WASHINGTON -- The United States should create a "truth commission" to probe alleged abuses under former US president George W. Bush, a top US senator said Monday.

The United States should create a "truth commission" to probe alleged abuses under former US president George W. Bush, Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, pictured in 2008, said. [Agencies]

Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said such a panel could look at policies like interrogation tactics many see as torture and warrantless wiretapping of US citizens.

"I'm doing this not to humiliate people," said.

Leahy, who compared his idea to post-apartheid South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation commission and said it was not aimed to "humiliate people" but "to get the truth out so we don't make the mistakes again."

The Vermont senator, who unveiled the proposal in a speech at Georgetown University, said he wanted to chart a middle way between those who want to prosecute Bush-era figures and those who want to wipe the slate clean.

"One path to that goal would be a reconciliation process and truth commission. We could develop and authorize a person or group of people universally recognized as fair minded, and without axes to grind," he said.

"People would be invited to come forward and share their knowledge and experiences, not for purposes of constructing criminal indictments, but to assemble the facts," said Leahy, a frequent Bush critic.

"Rather than vengeance, we need a fair-minded pursuit of what actually happened. Sometimes the best way to move forward is getting to the truth, finding out what happened, so we can make sure it does not happen again," he said.