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President Barack Obama signs a series of executive orders, including one closing of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Thursday, Jan. 22, 2009, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington.

With a few strokes of his pen, the new U.S. president reverses one of Bush's cornerstones in the "war on terror."

During his first week in office, President Barack Obama began reversing many of former President Bush's policies. In signing executive orders last Thursday, one of his biggest policy changes was to close the controversial Guantanamo Bay military detention center in Cuba within a year, where 245 terror suspects, mostly from the battlefields of the Middle East, are held without benefit of trial. Most detainees have not been charged with a crime. He also ordered the closure of secret overseas CIA prisons, a review of military war crimes trials, and a ban on harsh interrogation methods, or torture. There is to be an immediate review of the detainees to determine whether they should be transferred, released, or prosecuted.

By these actions, Obama initiated change in how the U.S. questions and prosecutes al-Qaeda, Taliban, and other foreign fighters who pose serious threats to America. The new White House counsel, Gregory Craig, acknowledged concerns from intelligence officials that the new restrictions on the CIA might be dangerous for the country, and he allowed that President Obama could reinstate those CIA operations if Osama bin Laden or other top al-Qaeda figure were captured.

Guantanamo became a rallying cry against America and a huge recruitment tool for terrorist organizations everywhere. The detention camp, opened after the U.S. entered Afghanistan immediately after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, have been operating for over seven years now. There have been four suicides, many hunger strikes, and accusations of extensive solitary confinement and abusive interrogations.

In other actions, according to an AP report, Obama is now requiring all U.S. personnel to follow the U.S. Army Field Manual when interrogating detainees. The manual "explicitly prohibits threats, coercion, physical abuse, and waterboarding, a technique that creates the sensation of drowning and has been termed a form of torture by critics."

"We believe that the Army Field Manual reflects the best judgment of our military, that we can abide by a rule that says we don't torture, but that we can still effectively obtain the intelligence that we need," said President Obama. "...We are willing to observe core standards of conduct, not just when it's easy, but also when it's hard."

The new and resoundingly popular young president signed the orders in the Oval Office last week surrounded by 16 retired generals and admirals who had spoken out passionately against torture, as well as Vice President Joseph Biden. By reversing the most disputed counterterrorism policies of the Bush administration, Obama declared that "our ideals give us the strength and moral high ground" in the fight against al-Qaeda. "We intend to win this fight," he said. "We are going to win it on our own terms."

Retired Admiral John D. Hutson, who was in attendance, stated that closing Guantanamo and banning coercive interrogation "is the right thing to do morally, diplomatically, militarily and constitutionally, but it also makes us safer."

One of the big questions remaining about "Gitmo," as the military detention center came to be known, is where the detainees will be taken and whether some might now be moved to American soil. Michigan Democratic Senator Carl Levin suggested that they be held at maximum-security federal facilities throughout the U.S. But many don't seem welcome to the idea of terrorists housed in their states.

Some prisoners have already been cleared for release, but no country will take them. Others, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-described "mastermind" of the September 11 attacks that killed thousands of Americans, are sure to find their way into U.S. courts and be tried by American citizens.

Several groups that had criticized the Bush administration's policies greatly applauded the quick moves by the new Obama administration. President Obama's actions "reaffirmed American values and are a ray of light after eight long, dark years," said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union.