But if Obama wants the world to really take us seriously he has to push for investigations of the Bush administration and prosecution and punishment for those that were involved and from the top down, not just a few lower level patsies.

I assume he is going to have a mechanism in place to let the world, mainly terrorist recruiting hot spots, know we are making serious changes. And another mechanism in place to make reporting abuse easy and safe for the person reporting it.

We have to assume the CIA and all other clandestine services will comply, only I wouldn't bet on it. To make this happen the ranks have to purged of those who participated or facilitated it in the past, and I don't sense Obama is ready to do that.

I hope Congress passes a law as well, so that the policy will be difficult for future presidents to change. Otherwise you risk policy changing every time the presidency changes parties, like the gag rule.

Obama just quoted as saying that Bush is a nice guy.
That should put things in perspective.

This more extensive article from AP has something interesting.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090116/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama_interrogations

"However, Obama's changes may not be absolute. His advisers are considering adding a classified loophole to the rules that could allow the CIA to use some interrogation methods not specifically authorized by the Pentagon, the officials said, although the intent is not to use that as an opening for possible use of waterboarding.

[...]

For Obama, who repeatedly insisted during the 2008 presidential campaign and the transition period that "America doesn't torture," a classified loophole would allow him to follow through on his promise to end harsh interrogations while retaining a full range of presidential options in conducting the war against terrorism.

The proposed loophole, which could come in the form of a classified annex to the manual, is designed to satisfy intelligence experts who fear that an outright ban of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques would limit the government in obtaining threat information that could save American lives. It would also preserve Obama's flexibility to authorize any interrogation tactics he might deem necessary for national security.

However, such a move would frustrate Senate Democrats and human rights, retired military and religious groups that have pressed for a government-wide prohibition on methods they describe as torture."

What Chris said except assuming the rest of the world will be passive about this is a mistake. Obama's real choice will be deciding if it's in the best interests of America for us to clean our own house or to let the Hague do it.

He will be forced into cleaning this up.