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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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August 28th,
2009 - Holder’s Decision To Probe CIA Hints At a New Dynamic 1st news article from the
Washington Post |
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Holder’s Decision To Probe
CIA Hints At a New Dynamic Official Winning Many Battles By Carrie Johnson & Anne E. Kornblut Washington Post August 28, 2009 About five weeks ago, faced
with a crucial decision on how to react to brutal CIA interrogation
practices, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. concluded that it would be all
but impossible to follow President Obama's mandate to move forward, rather
than investigate divisive episodes from the Bush "war on terror." Holder notified the White
House that he was reluctantly leaning toward naming a prosecutor to review
whether laws had been broken during interrogations - the very thing Obama had
said he wanted to avoid. And the word Holder got back, according to people
familiar with the conversations, was that the decision was up to him. The back story to Monday's
appointment of a career prosecutor to review CIA interrogation methods
illustrates Holder's influence in the new administration and sheds light on
the emerging and delicate relationship between the White House and the
Justice Department. In this and other big battles, including the decision to
release memos this year by Bush administration officials giving the green
light to harsh interrogation tactics, Holder and his Justice Department have
prevailed over strong objections from the CIA and the intelligence community.
Holder hasn't won every one of those battles, but he has won many. In this case, on a matter of
civil liberties and national security, the victory signals a dynamic that
could play out on a range of sensitive issues that will come to define the
Obama administration and its differences from the Bush era, including the detention
of terrorism suspects and the protection of state secrets. Administrations dating at
least to Richard M. Nixon's have grappled with the balance between political
sensitivities in the White House and the independence of the attorney
general, the nation's top law enforcement officer. During the Bush
administration, the relationship was marked for years by charges of
politicization. This week, after Holder
announced his decision to examine about 10 cases of alleged detainee abuse by
CIA interrogators in overseas prisons, the White House said it was his
prerogative. But the official accounts did not mention Holder's conversations
with the White House, nor Obama's deep, if cautious, engagement with the
issues. "There are some things
he recognizes are the attorney general's prerogative to do, but at the same
time, it's not like he just says, 'Well, whatever he does, he'll do,'" a
senior administration official said of the president. "He wants to make
sure we take into account those decisions and take the appropriate steps
within the White House to deal with them, particularly from the standpoint of
making sure we maintain that very capable, robust counterterrorism
capability." Holder is still carving out
his role in history, finding his comfort zone between such predecessors as
Alberto R. Gonzales, widely considered to be too close to the Bush White
House, and Janet Reno, who sometimes alienated President Bill Clinton and the
FBI with her stubborn independence and her investigations of Cabinet members. Holder's aides would not
describe his thought process in the weeks leading to the announcement. But
Holder himself acknowledged the seriousness of the move and its possible
fallout this week, saying that he shared the president's conviction that
backward-looking inquiries could fracture the country. "As attorney general,
my duty is to examine the facts and to follow the law," Holder said.
"In this case, given all of the information currently available, it is
clear to me that this review is the only responsible course of action for me
to take." For his part, Obama appears
determined to enter relationships with his Cabinet members as a strategic
participant. People who brief him say he is able to game out scenarios before
the experts in the room, even on foreign policy, national security and other
issues in which he had relatively little expertise before running for
president. Obama is approaching the
issues as a game of "three-dimensional chess," said John O.
Brennan, an assistant to the president for homeland security and
counterterrorism. "It's not kinetic checkers. And I think the approach
in the past was kinetic checkers. There are moves that are made on the chess
board that really have implications, so the president is always looking at
those dimensions of it." The just-announced review by
career prosecutor John H. Durham is being closely followed by the
intelligence community for clues about whether it will remain fixed on the
low-level CIA employees and contractors who may have stepped out of legal
bounds. Once Durham starts digging, some analysts said, the veteran
prosecutor could uncover evidence that leads him higher up the chain of
command in an inquiry that grows broader than the what the Justice Department
outlined Monday. Former vice president Richard
B. Cheney excoriated Obama and Holder this week, saying they were weakening
protections for Americans. "President Obama's
decision to allow the Justice Department to investigate and possibly
prosecute CIA personnel, and his decision to remove authority for
interrogation from the CIA to the White House, serves as a reminder, if any
were needed, of why so many Americans have doubts about this administration's
ability to be responsible for our nation's security," Cheney said. When he took over as attorney
general after the resignation of Gonzales in late 2007, Michael B. Mukasey
promptly reinstated guidelines that would bar the Bush White House and others
in the executive branch from reaching out to most of the department's
prosecutors. "The Department will advise the White House ... only where
it is important for the performance of the President's duties and where
appropriate from a law enforcement perspective," Mukasey wrote. Obama's advisers said he was
not oblivious to the effect a criminal investigation into prisoner abuse
cases would have, both on the intelligence officials it touches and on the
overall political climate. He has talked privately about the effect the
inquiry would have on the CIA, but he has drawn a clear line between the
White House and the Justice Department on criminal investigations into
detainee abuse, according to allies who repeatedly described his approach in
a single phrase: "balancing act." "The president is a
very sophisticated thinker and understands the implications of these
decisions and events, and wants to make sure that he is aware of what those
repercussions might be on the workforce, and on the reputation and image of
the United States," Brennan said in an interview. "I think he is
determined to make sure we are on the right course going ahead, but you
cannot just ignore the past, especially when Congress is doing its inquiries
and reviews and we're going to be facing these issues as a result of court
cases, as a result of congressional actions," Brennan said. "I
think he is making sure that he makes the best decisions, and sometimes you
cannot just wipe the slate clean. You have to deal with what the facts are,
or you have to actually try to make sure you can ascertain the facts - as
opposed to the hyperbole that is out there." Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said
Obama has "put a lot of thought" into how to balance security and
civil liberties. "I think he is very
much aware that this area has been something of a constitutional
teeter-totter," said Wyden, a member of the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence. Yet Wyden, who spoke
recently with CIA Director Leon Panetta about the difficulties of the job,
said morale and other problems facing the CIA are real. "He knew this job
wasn't going to be a walk in the park, and he's certainly seen that in the
last couple of weeks," the senator said, but he added that the director
did not plan to walk away, a possibility raised in some news reports.
"Leon Panetta is not a quitter," Wyden said. © 2009 The Washington Post
Company External link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/27/AR2009082704192.html Policy Will Help Officers Ensnared in Interrogation Probe By Walter Pincus Washington Post August 28, 2009 CIA Director Leon Panetta
decided Thursday that the agency will ensure legal representation for case
officers who become caught up in investigations of alleged interrogation
abuses of detainees at overseas locations, a senior intelligence official
said. Panetta's decision follows
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.'s appointment of a special prosecutor earlier
this week to conduct a preliminary review of whether federal laws were
violated during the interrogations. When working on controversial
assignments, many CIA officers take out personal liability insurance, which
sometimes reimburses legal fees if they face lawsuits or criminal charges,
but others do not. "Panetta will do
everything he can to ensure that anyone who needs legal representation has
it, whether they have liability insurance or not," said the senior
intelligence official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was
not authorized to speak before the decision is publicly announced. "It's
a question of fairness. People who did tough jobs for the country won't be
left by the side of the road." The new federal inquiry will
be conducted by Assistant U.S. Attorney John H. Durham, who since 2008 has
been investigating the destruction of CIA videotapes of detainees undergoing
waterboarding. In that investigation,
Durham has asked agency contractors to give testimony before a grand jury in
Alexandria next month, according to three sources familiar with the matter.
It is not clear that the witnesses will testify. Officials said the number of
CIA employees seeking legal representation could grow larger than the
relatively small number of people directly engaged in contact with detainees
as Durham gathers information, interviews agency employees and takes
testimony in his expanded inquiry. Several CIA officials
already have private lawyers being paid by insurance companies, and others are
having fees covered directly by the agency. At least one officer has a lawyer
working without charge, according to individuals familiar with the situation. One insurance firm
specializing in federal employee professional liability insurance, Wright
& Co., charges $292 annually for coverage and pays up to $200,000
"in defense costs for federal government initiated administrative
proceedings and investigations," according to its Web site. But experts
said legal fees could run far higher than that for lengthy cases. "Most CIA officers
don't have much money and could go into debt to hire a good lawyer,"
said a lawyer who has represented an agency official in the past and who
spoke on the condition of anonymity because he may be involved in future
investigations. President Obama in April
told senior CIA officials that the administration would not prosecute or
investigate agency personnel in the wake of disclosure of Justice Department
memos that first outlined harsh interrogation techniques. In announcing Durham's inquiry
on Monday, Holder said CIA officers "need to be protected from legal
jeopardy when they act in good faith and within the scope of legal
guidance." Staff writer Carrie Johnson
contributed to this report. © 2009 The Washington Post
Company External link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/27/AR2009082704071.html |