The Trump administration is preparing a sweeping executive order that would clear the way for the CIA to reopen overseas "black site" prisons, like those where it detained and tortured terrorism suspects before former President Barack Obama shut them down.

President Donald Trump's three-page draft order, titled "Detention and Interrogation of Enemy Combatants" and obtained by The New York Times, would also undo many of the other restrictions on handling detainees that Obama put in place in response to policies of the George W. Bush administration.

If Trump signs the draft order, he would also revoke Obama's directive to give the International Committee of the Red Cross access to all detainees in US custody. That would be another step toward reopening secret prisons outside of the normal wartime rules established by the Geneva Conventions, although statutory obstacles would remain.

Obama tried to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and refused to send new detainees there, but the draft order directs the Pentagon to continue using the site "for the detention and trial of newly captured" detainees – including not just more people suspected of being members of al-Qaida or the Taliban, like the 41 remaining detainees, but also Islamic State detainees. It does not address legal problems that might raise.

The draft order does not direct any immediate reopening of CIA prisons or revival of torture tactics, which are now banned by statute. But it sets up high-level policy reviews to make further recommendations in both areas to Trump, who vowed during the campaign to bring back waterboarding and a "hell of a lot worse" – not only because "torture works," but because even "if it doesn't work, they deserve it anyway."

Tom Malinowski, who was assistant secretary of state for human rights in the Obama administration, said the draft order showed that everyone who thought the office of the presidency or the advice of Cabinet secretaries like Defense Secretary James N. Mattis would temper Trump "is being shown wrong again."

"He'll listen to his worst instincts over his best advisers unless restrained by law," Malinowski said.