THOSE WHO ORDERED TORTURE MUST BE HELD TO ACCOUNT

How did it come about with over 10,000 lawyers in the Department of Defense that the DOD authorized "harsh" interrogation techniques (read "torture") of those captured in Afghanistan and elsewhere?

The only explanation is that the decision to use waterboarding, sexual humiliation and stress positions came from the top - from Bush himself and from Cheney and from Rice and from Rumsfeld.

The argument that they did these things because they wanted to protect the nation will not stand up. To engage in techniques used in the Inquisition to root out heretics is to group oneself with all those vile and mean people throughout history who think that torture produces the "truth." Just like the churchmen in Spain who thought they were doing God's work by condemning suspects to the rack or inflicting the "water test."

Furthermore, most of the inmates at Guantanamo turn out to be sheepherders or subsistence farmers, yet these were subject to the cruelest of interrogations.

The people who did this must be held to legal account. The smell of torture will not pass quickly. The United States must not allow the malefactors to leave office unscathed and uncharged.