Attorney General Eric Holder is likely to push ahead with a criminal investigation into the Bush administration's interrogation practices on suspected terrorists, despite the White House's desire to move forward.
(ABC News Photo Illustration)
President Barack Obama has ordered his national security team to investigate reports that U.S. allies were responsible for the deaths of as many as 2,000 Taliban prisoners of war during the opening days of the war in Afghanistan.
Obama told CNN in an interview that aired Sunday that he doesn't know what how the U.S.-allied Northern Alliance behaved in November 2001, but he wants a full accounting before deciding how to move forward.
"I think that, you know, there are responsibilities that all nations have even in war," Obama said during an interview at the end of a six-day trip to Russia, Italy and Ghana.
"And if it appears that our conduct in some way supported violations of the laws of war, then I think that, you know, we have to know about that."
The president's comments seem to reverse officials' statements from Friday, when they said they had no grounds to investigate the 2001 deaths of Taliban prisoners of war who human rights groups allege were killed by U.S.-backed forces.
Reacting to the interview, Physicians for Human Rights hailed Obama's decision.
"President Obama is right to say that U.S. and Afghan violations of the laws of war must be investigated," said Nathaniel Raymond, a Physicians for Human Rights researcher. "If the Obama administration finds that criminal wrongdoing occurred in this case, those responsible — whether American or Afghan officials — must be prosecuted."
But Obama's direction — discussed as he toured a former slave castle on Ghana's coast — does not guarantee action.
"We'll probably make a decision in terms of how to approach it once we have all the facts gathered up," Obama said.
The mass deaths were brought up anew Friday in a report by The New York Times. It quoted government and human rights officials accusing the Bush administration of failing to investigate the executions of hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of prisoners.
Do you have more information about this topic? If so, please click here to contact the editors of ABC News.
