[JURIST] US Senate Judiciary Committee [official website] chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) [official profile] Monday called for a South Africa-style truth commission [transcript] to investigate controversial actions by the George W. Bush administration, including justifications for the Iraq war, the treatment of military detainees, and the warrantless wiretapping [JURIST news archives] program. Speaking at Georgetown University, Leahy said there was a need to find balance between exposing Bush administration mistakes in order to avoid repeating them, and the desire to move forward rather than cast blame. Leahy suggested that a truth commission could accomplish that goal and that:

[Lawmakers] could develop and authorize a person or group of people universally recognized as fair minded, and without axes to grind. Their straightforward mission would be to find the truth. People would be invited to come forward and share their knowledge and experiences, not for purposes of constructing criminal indictments, but to assemble the facts. If needed, such a process could involve subpoena powers, and even the authority to obtain immunity from prosecutions in order to get to the whole truth. Congress has already granted immunity, over my objection, to those who facilitated warrantless wiretaps and those who conducted cruel interrogations. It would be far better to use that authority to learn the truth.