For Holder, Tough Choice on Interrogation Inquiry

By DAVID JOHNSTON
NYT

WASHINGTON — As the attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr., debates whether to appoint a criminal prosecutor to investigate the interrogations of terrorism suspects after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he is at the brink of a career-defining decision that risks the anger of the White House and the Central Intelligence Agency, one of the Justice Department’s main partners in combating terrorism.

There is no surprise then that Mr. Holder is said by officials to have been resistant at first to the idea of appointing a prosecutor, particularly since the Obama administration has made it clear that it wants to put the issue of interrogation practices during the Bush administration behind it. But associates have said he told them that he reacted with disgust when he recently read graphic accounts of interrogations in a 2004 C.I.A. inspector general’s report to be publicly released next month.

“It’s a very difficult decision,” said Philip B. Heymann, who, like Mr. Holder, was a deputy attorney general in former President Bill Clinton’s administration. “It’s about as hard a decision as I can imagine a prosecutor having to make.”

Mr. Holder’s choice is not simply a prosecutorial judgment. President Obama has said criminal acts should be prosecuted, but he has also warned that he does not want his administration distracted from its ambitious agenda by backward-looking inquiries.

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