Two Administrations Drew Different Lessons From 2004 Report
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
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.
(More here.)
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
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.
(More here.)
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