President Barack Obama is expected to sign "several" executive orders on Thursday directing the Central Intelligence Agency to close its network of "black sites," or secret foreign prisons, and order the closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp within a year.
The executive orders, aimed at rolling back much of former President Bush's architecture for the war on terror, involve "altering CIA detention and interrogation rules, limiting interrogation standards in all U.S. facilities worldwide to those outlined in the Army Field Manual, and prohibiting the agency from secretly holding terrorist detainees in third-country prisons," the Washington Post said citing sources familiar with the briefings.
The New York Times said the "orders would bring to an end a Central Intelligence Agency program that kept terrorism suspects in secret custody for months or years," and "also prohibit the CIA from using coercive interrogation methods."
A revised version of the Army Field Manual was released in 2006, explicitly banning enhanced interrogation techniques such as beating, using dogs to intimidate, electric shocks and waterboarding, which critics say is tantamount to torture.
On Wednesday, White House counsel Greg Craig met with top Republicans to review the president's plan and "told members of Congress to expect 'several' executive orders on Guantanamo Bay."
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/01/21/obama-closing-gitmo-year/100days/
