Administration: No Charges Over CIA's Enhanced Interrogation Techniques

Administration: No Charges Over CIA's Enhanced Interrogation Techniques
By Carrie Johnson
Copyright by The Washington Post
Thursday, April 16, 2009; 5:29 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/16/AR2009041602768.html?hpid=topnews


The Justice Department will not prosecute CIA officers who used harsh interrogation techniques against terrorism suspects with the blessing of lawyers, Obama administration officials said this afternoon, as they released four Bush-era legal memos detailing practices that critics have likened to torture.

In the fullest account to date of the questioning of al-Qaeda suspects, government officials issued long-sought documents that catalogue a list of tactics -- from sleep- and food-deprivation to beatings -- that Bush lawyers said comported with the law. The memos, which date to 2002, contain few redactions, despite a fierce battle within the Obama administration about the benefits of releasing the information.

In a statement, President Obama cited "exceptional circumstances" that compelled the documents' release, including a desire to confirm facts that had long been suspected and to prevent "erroneous and inflammatory assumptions" about U.S. conduct.

The practices were used against more than a dozen detainees that authorities considered to be of particularly "high" intelligence value after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist strikes. But Obama and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. reassured CIA officials anew today that interrogators would not face criminal prosecution so long as they followed reasonable legal advice.

Today's carefully worded statement left open the possibility, however, that agents and higher-level officials who may have ventured beyond the strategies approved by Bush lawyers could face legal jeopardy for their actions.

Both Obama and Holder for months have indicated a desire to look forward rather than ignite investigations that could alienate the intelligence community and ignite partisan rancor. "This is a time for reflection, not retribution," Obama said in his statement this afternoon even as he bemoaned the recent passing of a "dark and painful chapter in our history."

Already authorities are preparing to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. And this afternoon officials reaffirmed that they would no longer rely upon any Bush legal advice related to interrogation of terror suspects. A Justice Department led task force is evaluating other options for questioning of such suspects.

"It would be unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women working to protect America for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the Justice Department," Holder said in a statement.

For the first time, officials said today that they would provide legal representation at no cost to CIA employees subjected to probes by international tribunals or U.S. congressional inquiries. They also said they would indemnify agency workers against any possible financial judgments.

The announcement appeared to be designed to soothe concerns expressed by top U.S. intelligence officials, who had argued in recent weeks that the graphic detail in the memos could bring unwanted attention to interrogators and deter others from joining government service.

CIA Director Leon E. Panetta told agency employees this afternoon that the interrogation practices won approval from the highest levels of the Bush administration and that the employees had nothing to fear if they followed the legal guidance from the Justice Department. He said that "this is not the end of the road on these issues," foreshadowing congressional investigations, court actions and other activity. But, Panetta said, agency workers should remain focused on their mission.

For years the documents had been sought by lawmakers, civil liberties advocates and defense lawyers for men detained in U.S. military prisons. Holder and White House counsel Gregory B. Craig advocated publishing the sensitive documents in their entirety, saying it would fulfill the president's campaign promises of transparency and underscore the new team's break with the past.

Three of the memos respond to a request for legal advice from John Rizzo, senior deputy general counsel at the CIA, who wanted to know whether its procedures for questioning al-Qaeda operatives complied with laws and international treaties. These documents were prepared by Steven Bradbury, who led the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, an elite band of constitutional scholars who offer advice to the executive branch.

A fourth document dates to 2002, and was signed by Jay S. Bybee, who had served in the OLC before becoming a federal appeals court judge.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) said the documents were "chilling" and that their content "is as alarming as I feared it would be." He used the occasion to reissue a call for a "truth commission" to provide a thorough accounting of the issues.

And Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) , who investigated detainee abuse, said that "we must acknowledge and confront these abuses" in order to "restore America's image as a country that not only espouses ideals of human rights, but lives by them."

The memos were released as part of a longstanding case filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights, which have sought photos and papers documenting the government's treatment of detainees captured after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror strikes.The Senate Intelligence Committee, led by Chairman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), already is investigating alleged interrogation abuses in an initiative she announced earlier this year. Calls from interest groups for criminal prosecution of former administration officials who authorized the tactics have intensified with each release of fresh information about the government operations.

In his statement, Obama said that in releasing the memos, "it is our intention to assure those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice that they will not be subject to prosecution." Members of the U.S. intelligence community "serve courageously on the front lines of a dangerous world," and "every single American is safer" because of their sacrifices, he said. "We must protect their identities as vigilantly as they protect our security, and we must provide them with the confidence that they can do their jobs."

Obama also stressed that "certain activities and information related to national security" must remain secret and that today's release "should not be viewed as an erosion of the strong legal basis for maintaining the classified nature of secret activities."

He added: "This is a time for reflection, not retribution. I respect the strong views and emotions that these issues evoke. We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history. But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past."

The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups rejected that argument, strongly condemning Obama's decision to forgo prosecutions and demanding that those who authorized and carried out interrogation methods such as waterboarding be held accountable.

"We have to look back before we can move forward as a nation," Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the ACLU, said in a statement. "When crimes have been committed, the American legal system demands accountability. President Obama's assertion that there should not be prosecutions of government officials who may have committed crimes before a thorough investigation has been carried out is simply untenable."

Saying that "enforcing the nation's laws should not be a political decision," Romero argued that accountability is needed to help restore America's international reputation. "These memos provide yet more incontrovertible evidence that Bush administration officials at the highest level of government authorized and gave legal blessings to acts of torture that violate domestic and international law," he said. "There can be no more excuses for putting off criminal investigations of officials who authorized torture, lawyers who justified it and interrogators who broke the law."

Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU's National Security Project, said the released documents "aren't legal memos at all -- they are simply political documents that were meant to provide window dressing for war crimes."

Obama "has valid reasons for wanting to move on," said Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "But what will we say when another country uses the same argument to protect someone who tortured an American soldier, or who committed any other grave human rights abuse?"

While it is "understandable that the president would want to protect line CIA officers who relied on the lawyers' opinions in good faith," Malinowski said, "we shouldn't want to encourage a culture in any agency in which senior officials feel they never have to question even the most outlandish legal advice. After all, many people in the Bush administration, particularly in the military, did object to these legal opinions, and some paid a price for it. Should those who went along face less jeopardy than those who objected?"

Last month, the Obama administration issued nine memos by lawyers in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel during the Bush years. The documents reflect an expansive view of presidential authority and gave authority, which was never used, for the military to engage in operations on U.S. soil.

Ethics watchdogs at the Justice Department, meanwhile, have been investigating whether three Bush lawyers in the Office of Legal Counsel followed professional standards when they blessed Bush tactics in the war on terror. They include Bradbury, who left the department in January; Bybee, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit; and John C. Yoo, now a law professor in southern California.

The report may take months to be released because authorities are waiting for comment from some of the three lawyers and many of the issues are highly classified, a department lobbyist told lawmakers recently.

Holder, who took office in February, has emphasized a new approach to national security even as he adopted Bush era arguments to assert broad authority to detain enemy combatants without criminal charges and to dismiss sensitive civil lawsuits on the grounds that they involve "state secrets."

In a speech last night to cadets at West Point, Holder told the audience that "a need to act behind closed doors does not grant a license to pursue policies, and to take actions, that cannot withstand the disinfecting power of sunlight."

"In fact, it is in those moments -- the moments when no one is watching -- when we must be most vigilant in relying on the rule of law to govern our conduct," he continued.

Staff writer William Branigin contributed to this report.