World: Key differences in style: The Bush CIA vs. the Obama CIA
- Bush The CIA became known for its heavy detention and interrogation policies — and drew lots of controversy for some of them, like bringing detainees to Guantanamo Bay and stuff.
- Obama Beyond Iraq and Afghanistan, the CIA has largely left this strategy behind. “The CIA is out of the detention and interrogation business,” said one U.S. official not speaking on the record. source
- » Whaddya mean you don’t want to talk? A great example of this is the case of Umar Patek, the main suspect in a 2002 nightclub bombing in Indonesia that killed 202 people. Seven of those people were Americans — and Patek himself possesses a wealth of knowledge about groups linked to al-Qaeda in Southeast Asia. But the CIA has taken a hands-off approach to Patek. They haven’t even bothered to interrogate him. That’s the key thing here — while the CIA certainly has a bunch of detainees from the Bush era that they don’t know what to do with, they’re not actively trying to pick up any new ones, it seems.