Bush Anti-Terror Policies Get Reluctant Revisit

Recent Disclosures Prompt Obama Administration to Rethink Approach to Inquiries

By Carrie Johnson and Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, July 13, 2009

After trying for months to shake off the legacy of their predecessors and focus on their own priorities, Obama administration officials have begun to concede that they cannot leave the fight against terrorism unexhumed and are reluctantly moving to examine some of the most controversial and clandestine episodes.

The acknowledgment came amid fresh disclosures about CIA activity that had been hidden from Congress for seven years, the secrecy surrounding a little-understood electronic surveillance program that operated without court approval, and word that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. favors naming a criminal prosecutor to examine whether U.S. interrogators tortured terrorism suspects.

The way ahead for an administration grappling with severe economic trouble and health-care reform is all but certain to prove controversial, and perhaps difficult to control, for leaders who have foundered in their approach to national security policy.

Fears expressed by President Obama and his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, that looking back at the Bush administration would force the country into divisive arguments won new footing yesterday as conservative lawmakers challenged even small steps that Obama and his attorney general appear on the verge of taking.

(More here.)