US Election: Mitt Romney aides propose return of waterboarding The leaked document prepared for his "national security law subcommittee" in September 2011 also asserted that "Governor Romney has recognized for years that the sounder policy outcome is the revival of the enhanced interrogation programme." The memo, written by a group of conservative lawyers, many of whom are veterans of the George W Bush administration, argued that Mr Obama's decision had almost certainly "hampered" the fight against terrorism. Amrit Singh, a lawyer with the New York-based Open Society Justice Initiative and the author of Administration of Torture, a book detailing the Bush administration's torture policy, said the memo was "extremely dangerous." The memo is dangerous. Torture is not only immoral, it's illegal," she told The Telegraph. The US has signed and ratified to the UN Convention Against Torture which states specifically there can be no exceptional circumstances. This memo urges the violation of international and domestic law. However she added that Mr Obama, by failing to prosecute those responsible for authorizing torture during the Bush era, was responsible for leaving open the door to the possible return of "enhanced interrogation techniques." "It's because of that failure of accountability that we're now seeing the emergence of these kinds memos in the Romney campaign," she said. If Obama administration is serious about ending torture, he must set about holding those responsible for authorising torture accountable. Republicans are divided on the issue of waterboarding. In 2008 Senator John McCain, a Vietnam war veteran who is fiercely opposed to torture, clashing angrily with Mr Romney during a Republican primary debate, attacking him for mincing words over whether the technique constituted torture. It's in violation of the Geneva Conventions, it's in violation of existing law. Governor Romney, let me tell you, if we're going to get the high ground and we're going to be the America that has been cherished and loved for more than 200 years, we're not going to torture people," he said in a televised debate.