WASHINGTON — CIA interrogators exceeded legal limits on harsh interrogations of al-Qaeda detainees during the Bush administration, according to a former top Justice Department official who was interviewed by congressional investigators.
House Democrats said Thursday that Jay Bybee, who headed the department’s Office of Legal Counsel, told them in May that he never approved a number of interrogation techniques used on detainees in CIA custody. Techniques his office did approve — such as waterboarding, the simulated drowning of terrorist suspects — were used too many times on detainees, Bybee told investigators.
Many techniques “not authorized”
The House Judiciary Committee released a transcript of its interview with Bybee, who authored two of the Bush administration memos that blessed waterboarding, sleep deprivation and other tactics used after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Committee chairman John Con yers, D-Mich., said Bybee had revealed “that many brutal techniques reportedly used in CIA interrogations were not authorized by the Justice Department” and that the committee had sent the interview transcript to department lawyers.
The question of whether CIA contractors stepped outside legal boundaries in interrogating terrorist suspects lies at the heart of a criminal inquiry into interrogation practices, which are one of the Bush administration’s most fraught legacies. Attorney General Eric Holder in August expanded the mandate of Assistant U.S. Attorney John Durham to include the actions of CIA interrogators and contractors at “black site” prisons. Durham had been investigating the destruction of videotapes of some of the interrogations.
Holder recently said Durham is close to finishing a preliminary review of whether there is evidence that interrogators violated the law. It was unclear Thursday whether Durham’s probe has been expanded to a full investigation.
Holder has said the existence of Durham’s probe does not necessarily mean that anyone will face criminal charges.
Review includes death of Afghan
Sources have said the Justice Department review of detainee abuse is focusing on a small number of cases, including the 2002 death of a young Afghan man who was beaten and chained to a cold concrete floor without blankets at a secret CIA facility in Afghanistan known as the Salt Pit.
The review has generated criticism from Republicans, and seven former CIA directors have urged President Barack Obama to end it, arguing that it would inhibit future intelligence operations and demoralize agency employees. Two teams of Justice Department prosecutors in the Bush administration had decided against opening a criminal inquiry.
Ethics probe cites poor judgment
Bybee, now a federal judge, could not immediately be reached for comment. A separate ethics investigation concluded this year that he and another Bush administration lawyer who wrote memos blessing harsh interrogation tactics, John Yoo, exercised poor judgment but that they would not face discipline, which could have included revocation of their licenses to practice law.
