Poll: Majority of Americans Want Investigation of Bush Administration’s Use of Torture

A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll released today finds that a majority of Americans are in favor of investigating whether Bush Administration interrogation and detention policies broke the law.

Close to two-thirds of those surveyed said there should be investigations into allegations that the Bush team used torture to interrogate terrorism suspects and its program of wiretapping U.S. citizens without getting warrants. Almost four in 10 favor criminal investigations and about a quarter want investigations without criminal charges. One-third said they want nothing to be done.

Human Rights First is calling for the establishment of a non-partisan truth commission that would investigate those policies and establish a comprehensive record of what went wrong. This would be a critical step towards effectively banning torture for good by evaluating the true costs of previous policy. Join the Facebook group in support of a commission here.