WASHINGTON — By naming a special prosecutor to investigate whether CIA officers or contractors violated the Bush administration’s interrogation policies, Attorney General Eric Holder has struck a middle course that isn’t likely to satisfy anyone and could complicate President Barack Obama’s broader political agenda.
Obama, vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard, said through a spokesman that he’s focused on the future but committed to letting his attorney general do what he considers necessary.
In an already rancorous political atmosphere, however, anger among Republicans who oppose any prosecutions and liberals who think the administration should pursue the Bush administration officials who authorized the interrogation techniques could make it even harder for Obama to count on broad coalitions to enact his agenda, from health care to climate change and immigration.
“The most immediate effect is, he wants public attention on health care coming out of a difficult August so he can define what this bill is about,” said Princeton University history and public affairs professor Julian Zelizer.
“Now, with Holder’s announcement, we’re going to be talking about national security and torture again. So on that level I do think it’s harmful. And it’s more red meat for Republicans” who came out of health care town halls charged up.
“This builds on the kind of ‘socialized medicine’ argument of August. Here comes the ‘weak on defense’ argument of September.”
Hours before Holder’s announcement, the administration also said that Obama would move the principal responsibility for managing detainee interrogations out of the CIA and into a new interagency group.
Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri, the top Republican on the Senate intelligence panel, called Holder’s move a “witch hunt” against those who kept America safe after the 2001 terrorist attacks.
Bond said that with the change in interrogation oversight, the White House had usurped control and was signaling to the world a loss of confidence in CIA Director Leon Panetta and the intelligence community.
A group of nine Senate Republicans fired off a letter to Holder criticizing his decision. The group included not only predictable administration critics, but also two senators, Charles Grassley of Iowa and Orrin Hatch of Utah, to whom Democrats have looked for support on health care legislation.
Meanwhile, anti-war, human-rights, constitutional-law and liberal groups immediately pressed for a more far-reaching probe, renewing calls for independent truth commissions or wide-open criminal probes.
“We hope this is just the beginning,” said Justin Ruben, ‘s executive director.
Highlights from the 2004 CIA documents
• CIA operatives used “unauthorized, improvised, inhumane and undocumented detention and interrogation techniques” that went beyond what the Justice Department allowed.
• Interrogators told 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed that “if anything else happens in the United States, ‘We’re going to kill your children,’ ” one veteran officer said.
• An officer who said he’d never been trained in interrogation repeatedly pinched the carotid artery of a detainee until he started to pass out, then shook him awake.
• Interrogators stepped up their use of waterboarding beyond the stimulated drowning tactics authorized by lawyers. One interrogator poured large volumes of water on a cloth covering a detainee’s mouth and nose. He acknowledged it was different from approved methods and said that’s because it was “for real.”
• Some CIA officials said the agency had limited intelligence on al-Qaeda and very little understanding about what senior leaders knew. So analysts could only speculate about what a detainee “should know.”
• Interrogations provided important intelligence. “There is no doubt that the program has been effective.” But measuring the effectiveness of extreme tactics such as waterboarding “is a more subjective process and not without some concern.”
• One CIA officer expressed concern that officers would wind up on a “wanted list” for war crimes. Another said, “Ten years from now, we’re going to be sorry we’re doing this . . . (but) it has to be done.”
• Interrogators conducted at least one mock execution to try to scare a prisoner into talking. Mock executions are a violation of U.S. laws.
• Even after interrogators believed terrorism suspect Abu Zubaydah to be cooperative, CIA officials pressured them to keep waterboarding.
• An interrogator hinted that officials would sexually assault suspect Abd al-Nashiri’s mother in front of him. “We could get your mother in here,” the interrogator said. “We can bring your family in here.”
The Associated Press
