Bush, Obama split sharply on interrogations
Release of '04 probe results highlights tension between security, openness
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Aug 24, 2009
WASHINGTON - When an internal CIA report concluded in May 2004 that "unauthorized, improvised, inhumane, and undocumented" interrogation methods had been used on suspected al-Qaeda members, the predominant reaction within the Bush administration was not revulsion but frustration that the agency's efforts inside a network of secret prisons had not been more effective, former senior intelligence and White House officials recall.
Top officials in the Obama administration on Monday made clear that they read the report differently. Despite CIA resistance, they released unflattering portions of it on the same day the attorney general authorized a prosecutor to decide whether CIA employees broke the law while undertaking or overseeing those interrogations.
They also wrested control of future interrogations of suspected senior al-Qaeda members away from the CIA and handed it to an interagency group that will be housed at the FBI -- whose agents had not only objected to the CIA's techniques but also refused to stay in the rooms where they were practiced.
In supporting harsh interrogation methods, officials in the Bush administration have said they were strongly influenced by pervasive fear and anxiety that another attack on the United States was imminent, and that virtually any measure the Justice Department approved was seen as justified.
Obama and his aides, in contrast, have concluded that the benefits of the harsh interrogation program were unproven or slight, and that the costs to America's standing in the world exceed any potential gains from allowing it to persist.
A new approach
Many of the Obama administration's top national security appointees are addressing the issues for the first time: They were not part of the CIA, the Justice Department or the White House staff during that frenetic period of 2002 to 2004, when the CIA report said the interrogations were conducted with inadequate staffing or support and under incomplete guidelines that left "substantial room for misinterpretation."
Obama and his director of national intelligence, Dennis Blair, have also emphasized the need to conduct counterterrorism initiatives more openly. They have embraced the CIA report's conclusion that harsh interrogation techniques were a historic aberration that might bring "long-term political and legal challenges."
The CIA's interrogation program "diverges sharply," the report stated, "from previous Agency policy and practice, rules that govern interrogations by U.S. military and law enforcement officers, statements of U.S. policy by the Department of State, and public statements by very senior U.S. officials, including the President, as well as the policies expressed by members of Congress, other Western governments, international organizations, and human rights groups."
Having trouble keeping up with the lines of justification for the US torture regime? Digby brings you a handy chart: click for enlarge.
related;
Does Torture Work?
Torture devices allegedly used by Uday Hussein, son of Saddam Hussein, on members of Iraq's Olympic team as tools of punishment for bad performance. (did'nt seem to work)
Bush, Obama split sharply on interrogations
Release of '04 probe results highlights tension between security, openness
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Aug 24, 2009
WASHINGTON - When an internal CIA report concluded in May 2004 that "unauthorized, improvised, inhumane, and undocumented" interrogation methods had been used on suspected al-Qaeda members, the predominant reaction within the Bush administration was not revulsion but frustration that the agency's efforts inside a network of secret prisons had not been more effective, former senior intelligence and White House officials recall.
Top officials in the Obama administration on Monday made clear that they read the report differently. Despite CIA resistance, they released unflattering portions of it on the same day the attorney general authorized a prosecutor to decide whether CIA employees broke the law while undertaking or overseeing those interrogations.
They also wrested control of future interrogations of suspected senior al-Qaeda members away from the CIA and handed it to an interagency group that will be housed at the FBI -- whose agents had not only objected to the CIA's techniques but also refused to stay in the rooms where they were practiced.
In supporting harsh interrogation methods, officials in the Bush administration have said they were strongly influenced by pervasive fear and anxiety that another attack on the United States was imminent, and that virtually any measure the Justice Department approved was seen as justified.
Obama and his aides, in contrast, have concluded that the benefits of the harsh interrogation program were unproven or slight, and that the costs to America's standing in the world exceed any potential gains from allowing it to persist.
A new approach
Many of the Obama administration's top national security appointees are addressing the issues for the first time: They were not part of the CIA, the Justice Department or the White House staff during that frenetic period of 2002 to 2004, when the CIA report said the interrogations were conducted with inadequate staffing or support and under incomplete guidelines that left "substantial room for misinterpretation."
Obama and his director of national intelligence, Dennis Blair, have also emphasized the need to conduct counterterrorism initiatives more openly. They have embraced the CIA report's conclusion that harsh interrogation techniques were a historic aberration that might bring "long-term political and legal challenges."
The CIA's interrogation program "diverges sharply," the report stated, "from previous Agency policy and practice, rules that govern interrogations by U.S. military and law enforcement officers, statements of U.S. policy by the Department of State, and public statements by very senior U.S. officials, including the President, as well as the policies expressed by members of Congress, other Western governments, international organizations, and human rights groups."
Having trouble keeping up with the lines of justification for the US torture regime? Digby brings you a handy chart: click for enlarge.
related;
Does Torture Work?
Torture devices allegedly used by Uday Hussein, son of Saddam Hussein, on members of Iraq's Olympic team as tools of punishment for bad performance. (did'nt seem to work)
