Republican Backs Pursuit Of Bush-Era Crimes

Senator Arlen Specter said there were signs authorities believe crimes may have been committed.

Bush administration officials who knowingly approved faulty legal opinions to justify antiterrorism measures including torture should face prosecution, a leading Republican senator said on Wednesday.

Senator Arlen Specter, the top ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said there were signs authorities believe crimes may have been committed.

But he said investigating them would not require a special "truth commission," an idea gaining momentum among Democrats and rights advocates.

"If we have evidence of torture -- torture is a violation of our law -- go after them. If there is reason to believe that these (Bush-era) Justice Department officials have knowingly given the president cover for things they know not to be right and sound, go after them," Specter said at a committee hearing on the truth commission proposal.

Patrick Leahy, the committee's Democratic chairman, has proposed a South African-style truth commission to expose and learn lessons from elements of former President George W. Bush's war on terrorism. These include abusive interrogations of terrorism suspects and warrantless domestic eavesdropping.

Several human rights advocates and Democrats have urged an aggressive probe, but Leahy said criminal indictments would not be the goal of his bipartisan panel.

President Barack Obama has swiftly scrapped many of Bush's antiterrorism policies and has said clear wrongdoing should be prosecuted. He said he would look at Leahy's proposal, but suggested he prefers to turn the page and "get it right moving forward."

The Senate Intelligence Committee plans to conduct a separate closed-door investigation on the CIA's treatment of terrorism suspects.

"The world is watching," said Brett Solomon, director of a petition campaign for the global advocacy group Avaaz.org. The group gave Leahy what it said were 100,000 signatures from 180 countries to an online petition seeking a truth commission.

Specter cited a Justice Department internal ethics probe begun under Bush into legal opinions, which were later repudiated, regarding prisoner treatment. He also noted the department's disclosure this week of Bush-era opinions asserting sweeping presidential power over military actions on U.S. soil, the treatment of terrorism suspects and domestic wiretapping.

Specter called them "shocking" and said: "They (the Justice Department) are going further than just the exposes. They're starting to tread on what may disclose criminal conduct."

But he also likened Leahy's commission proposal to a politically inflammatory "fishing expedition." Instead, he said, Obama's Justice Department has full access to department records and is capable of doing the investigation. "They're not going to pull any punches."