Background Information and Rationale for Inquiry

There are a number of important policy reasons for commissioning such an inquiry, including at the very least:

1. Ensuring ongoing accountability for government security policies and practices and
preventing future abuses. Systematic torture and cruel treatment, arbitrary detention
and disappearances are less likely when accountability mechanisms exist to bring
abuses to the public’s attention. In this regard, international law also recognizes that
linked to a State’s duty to ensure respect for human rights is a collective “right to
know” which aims to inform the broader public and serve as a preventive measure
against recurrence of violations.

2. Providing a solid basis for determining new, rights-respecting policies. A
commission of inquiry is uniquely adapted to this aim in its capacity to identify
underlying causes for serious human rights abuses and explain failures of
accountability. On this basis, an inquiry can aid in the identification of those areas
where legislation or executive action is necessary to change policy and formulate
concrete recommendations to prevent future abuses.

3. Helping to restore citizens’ faith and credibility in U.S. democracy by ensuring
that people have access to sufficient and transparent information about federal
governmental activities, enabling them to understand and question policies, and by
reinstating or strengthening constitutional checks and balances. A timely inquiry also
could facilitate a more efficient and proactive reclassification of information than can
be achieved through individual Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests or
litigation alone.

4. Rebuilding the United States’ reputation as a leading democratic nation and
protector of human rights through an explicit commitment by the new administration
to review past abuses and to implement change. An inquiry can also make it possible
for other governments to investigate effectively their own agents’ misconduct in
connection with unlawful detentions and mistreatment of detainees in the global
dimension of the “war on terror.”

5. Recognizing the humanity and experience of all affected individuals, thus making them less vulnerable to future abuses and reinforcing the United States’ commitment to the rule of law. This can also ensure that when the United States demands that others comply with international standards, it does so from an ethical position of its own satisfaction of these norms.

Here's a quote from retired US Army Major General Antonio Taguba, who led a military investigation in 2004 into detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib (he wrote this in the preface to a 2008 report on detainee abuse):

"Our national honor is stained by the indignity and inhumane treatment these men received from their captors... After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account. The former detainees in this report, each of whom is fighting a lonely and difficult battle to rebuild his life, require reparations for what they endured, comprehensive psycho-social and medical assistance, and even an official apology from our government. But most of all, these men deserve justice as required under the tenets of international law and the United States Constitution. And so do the American people."