Jane Mayer has published a new article in the The New Yorker today on US torture policy. Mayer's article centers around her interview with Leon Panetta, the new director of the Central Intelligence Agency, under the Obama administration. The article provides an overview of the Obama Administration's approaches towards and retreats from pursuing accountability for those involved in overseeing and facilitating the Bush administration's CIA and US military programs of torture. Near the article's close, Mayer quotes Nathaniel Raymond, Director of PHR's Campaign Against Torture:
Without a thorough public investigation, it’s difficult to assess the truth behind such contradictory accusations. “Everyone says, ‘It’s over, it’s known,’” Nathaniel Raymond, who works with the advocacy group Physicians for Human Rights, told me. “But what is known? We still don’t know how many detainees were in the black sites, or who they were. We don’t fully know the White House’s role, or the C.I.A.’s role. We need a full accounting, especially as it relates to health professionals.” The recently released Justice Department memos, he noted, contain numerous references to C.I.A. medical personnel participating in coercive interrogation sessions. “They were the designers, the legitimizers, and the implementers,” Raymond said. “This is arguably the single greatest medical-ethics scandal in American history. We need answers.”