NEW YORK, Jan. 15 (UPI) -- Human Rights Watch gave U.S. President Barack Obama a mixed review on his effort to reverse the counter-terrorism polices of the previous administration.
Joanne Mariner, the terrorism and counter-terrorism director at Human Rights Watch, praised Obama for his efforts during his first year in office to close the controversial U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.
"Unfortunately, he has also adopted many of the (George W.) Bush administration's most misguided policies," she complained.
In an 11-page document outlining its recommendations to Obama, HRW praised the administration for ordering the closure of secret CIA prisons and for a ban on torture at the hands of U.S. personnel.
However, the administration's "continued reliance" on holding high-profile terrorist suspects without charge was "its most serious misstep," the rights group said.
The report praised Obama for taking swift action to repudiate controversial Bush-era policies when he took office in January 2009. "But in the months that followed this promising start, the administration chose to retain a number of the previous administration's most problematic policies, albeit in modified form," the report read.
The rights group also called on Obama to take additional measures to hold top-ranking officials in the Bush administration accountable for abusive post-Sept. 11 policies.
"Only by investigating and prosecuting torture and other crimes against detainees will the U.S. government be understood to have surmounted them," HRW said.
