Therefore bypassing decades of international law in the use of torture.

Two weeks ago the Armed Services Committee of the US Senate released a bipartisan report (co-authored by John McCain) into the American use of torture against those held in the war on terror. It dismissed the notion that the horrors of Abu Ghraib could be put down to "a few bad apples". Instead it laid bare, in forensic detail, the trail of memos and instructions that led directly to the then defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld.

The report was the fruit of 18 months of work, involving some 70 interviews. Most of it is classified, but even the 29-page published summary makes horrifying reading. It shows how the most senior figures in the Bush administration discussed, and sought legal fig leaves for, practices that plainly amounted to torture.

On "7 February 2002, President George W Bush made a written determination that Common Article 3 of the Geneva conventions, (which would have afforded minimum standards for humane treatment), did not apply to al-Qaida or Taliban detainees". The result, is that Bush "opened the door" to the use of a raft of techniques that the US had once branded barbaric and beyond the realm of human decency.

Although not covered much here at home; it's been mentioned bewfore that we need to hold those responsible accountable for this blight upon America.

>"But other prosecutors elsewhere in the world should weigh their responsibilities. In the end, it was a lone Spanish magistrate, not a Chilean court, who ensured the arrest of Augusto Pinochet. A pleasing, if uncharitable, thought this Christmas, is that Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush will hesitate before making plans to travel abroad in 2009. Or indeed at any time - ever again."

Article from the Guardian <here.>