Leon Panetta, Barack Obama's nominee to head the CIA, told the Senate Intelligence Committee the practice of extraordinary rendition will no longer be allowed.
Extraordinary Rendition is the practice of abducting someone, sending them to another country, and using coercive intelligence-gather techniques (i.e., torture( on them. Leon Panetta said that President Barack Obama forbids that practice.
However, Panetta did state that renditions are still allowable:
"I think renditions where we return individuals to another country where they prosecute them under their laws, I think that is an appropriate use of rendition. Having said that, if we capture a high-value prisoner, I believe we have the right to hold that individual temporarily, to debrief that individual and to make sure that individual is properly incarcerated so we can maintain control over that individual."
While A.G. Eric Holder has not ruled out the possibility of prosecuting those who participated in the torture of enemy combatants, Panetta said there would be no prosecution of those involved, as long as they did not go beyond the techniques they had been told was legal.
In other words, if the Bush administration told CIA members that a certain technique was legal, they could not, or rather, should not, be prosecuted for those acts.
Panetta is not expected to face major opposition in the Senate.
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