Saturday 24 January 2009

Has President Obama given an undertaking that his new administration will discourage any move against the architects of the Iraq War?

The US Department of Justice website lists all presidential pardons and commutations granted by George W. Bush up to March 2008.

Since then it has released media notification of the granting of least 34 other pardons - 14 in November 2008, 19 in December 2008 and 2 in January 2009.

Now it would be hard to word any pardon for the human rights violations and alleged war crimes committed by the former president, members of the Bush Administration and/or their agents, because George Bush appears to have quashed or suspended many of the US federal legal provisions which recognised or protected against such violations.

However, this does not make the former Bush Administration fire proof and so one is left to wonder if the new US President, Barack Obama, has given the past president an undertaking that neither he or his administration would assist in any international or domestic investigation of these individuals and would resist calls for their prosecution.

I would like to know the answer to that query as would a number of others.

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