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Promising to return America to the “moral high ground” in the war on terrorism, President Obama issued three executive orders Thursday to demonstrate a clean break from the Bush administration, including one requiring that the Guantanamo Bay detention facility be closed within a year.
During a signing ceremony at the White House, Obama reaffirmed his inauguration pledge that the United States does not have “to continue with a false choice between our safety and our ideals.”
The president said he was issuing the order to close the facility in order to “restore the standards of due process and the core constitutional values that have made this country great even in the midst of war, even in dealing with terrorism.”
A second executive order formally bans torture by requiring that the Army field manual be used as the guide for terrorism interrogations. That essentially ends the Bush administration’s CIA program of enhanced interrogation methods.
“We believe that the Army field manual reflects the best judgment of our military, that we can abide by a rule that says we don’t torture, but that we can still effectively obtain the intelligence that we need,” Obama said. 
Watch Obama sign the orders »
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“This is me following through … on an understanding that dates back to our founding fathers, that we are willing to observe core standards of conduct not just when it’s easy but also when it’s hard.” Watch Obama vow that the “U.S. will not torture” »
A third executive order establishes an interagency task force to lead a systematic review of detention policies and procedures and a review of all individual cases.
The task force, Obama stated, will also “provide me with information in terms of how we are able to deal [with] the disposition of some of the detainees that may be currently in Guantanamo that we cannot transfer to other countries, who could pose a serious danger to the United States.”
The president also signed a memorandum requesting a delay in the Supreme Court’s hearing of the case of Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, a legal U.S. resident contesting his detention for more than five years as an enemy combatant. He has been held in a military brig without the government bringing any charges against him.
Al-Marri’s case is scheduled to be heard by the high court in March or April.
Al-Marri “is clearly a dangerous individual,” Obama said. “We have asked for a delay in going before the Supreme Court to properly review the evidence against him.”
During the second Bush term, the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay became a lightning rod for critics who charged the Bush administration with torturing terrorist suspects. President George W. Bush and other senior officials repeatedly denied that the U.S. government had used torture to extract intelligence from terror suspects. Watch experts debate the Guantanamo dilemma »
closing Guantanamo represents a step in the right direction; pretty soon the U.S. will be able to join the world community once again