Only two days after taking office, and after months of promising "change" after eight years of the Bush debacle, President Obama kept the controversial War On Terror™ tactic of rendition in place in a Jan 22 Executive Order.
Rendition is the secret capture, transport, and detention of suspected terrorists to foreign prisons in countries that cooperate with the United States, and it’s being kept in the CIA’s playbook thanks to President Obama.
In late 2007, the U.S. House voted to end renditions by the CIA, but that prohibition, part of a $50 billion Iraq funding bill, was never passed in the Senate. Also in 2007, Congress apologized for the wrongful detainment of Canadian citizen Maher Arar, who was "rendered" to Syria, where he was tortured into making a false confession.
Obama’s decision to continue rendition revives questions about the tactic’s effectiveness and legality.
"The reason we did interrogations [ourselves] is because renditions for the most part weren’t very productive," a former senior CIA official told the Los Angeles Times anonymously.
"In some ways, [rendition] is the worst option," the former official said. "If [the prisoners] are in U.S. hands, you have a lot of checks and balances, medics and lawyers. Once you turn them over to another service, you lose control."