Dear Friends:<\/p>\n
Earlier this week, President Obama expressed openness to the possibility of Congress creating an independent, non-partisan Commission of Inquiry to examine the use of torture in our interrogation policies and practices since Sept. 11, 2001. You can read about President Obama\u2019s comments in the Washington Post by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n
President Obama doesn\u2019t need to wait for Congress. He can create a Commission of Inquiry himself. With the release of the International Committee of the Red Cross report identifying U.S. interrogation techniques as torture, the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel memos detailing the various acts of torture, and the Senate Armed Services Committee Report confirming the approval of the torture techniques by some of our highest officials, we need a Commission of Inquiry to put the full story together so as a nation we can know what the United States did and agree to never let it happen again. The most direct way to establish such a Commission is for President Obama to appoint a Commission himself.<\/p>\n