Haroon Siddiqui: Ignatieff has much to answer for

All this brings us, inevitably, to Michael Ignatieff. The Bush administration maintained that it did not do torture. It talked about and wrote memos on "coercive interrogation," "aggressive interrogation" and "enhanced interrogation techniques." Ignatieff opposed torture. He wrote essays on "acceptable degrees of coercive interrogation," or "vigorous interrogation," without crossing the line into torture.

"Permissible duress might include forms of sleep deprivation that do not result in lasting harm to mental or physical health, together with disinformation and disorientation (like keeping prisoners in hoods) that would produce stress. "What crosses the line into the impermissible would be any physical coercion or abuse, any involuntary use of drugs or serums, any withholding of medicines or basic food, water and essential rest."

Ignatieff's rationale was about the same as Bush's: extracting information from detainees to prevent "the greater evil" of terrorist attacks. For that – and for advocating indefinite detention of suspects, targeted assassinations and pre-emptive wars – Ignatieff was seen as one of the intellectual enablers of Bush's war on terror. That he was then the director of the Center for Human Rights at Harvard University gave added weight to his words. Given the current rethinking in the U.S., has Ignatieff had reason to rethink his own position?

Canadians are entitled to know. A good place for him to break his silence would be at the Liberal convention in Vancouver this weekend.