Administration Is Debating Release of Interrogation Memos

Administration Is Debating Release of Interrogation Memos

By SCOTT SHANE
Published: March 31, 2009

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is intensely debating whether and when to release documents from the Bush administration related to harsh interrogation methods used on prisoners belonging to Al Qaeda, according to administration and Congressional officials.

Doug Mills/The New York Times
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has argued for releasing classified material.

Some officials, including Gregory B. Craig, the White House counsel, and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., have argued for disclosing the material as quickly as possible to distance the new administration from the most controversial policies of the Bush years. Mr. Holder and other top officials have condemned the most extreme of the past interrogation techniques, waterboarding, as illegal torture, and they see no reason to hide from public view what they consider the mistakes of their predecessors.

But some former and current Central Intelligence Agency officials say a rush to release classified material could expose intelligence methods and needlessly offend dedicated counterterrorism officers. Some administration and Congressional officials said John O. Brennan, a C.I.A. veteran who now serves as President Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, has urged caution in disclosing interrogation documents.

One test on the disclosure issue will come this week in federal court in New York. By Thursday, the Justice Department must tell a judge overseeing a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union whether it will release three legal memorandums from 2005, signed by Steven G. Bradbury, who worked in the department’s Office of Legal Counsel under President George W. Bush, that offered legal justification for harsh interrogation.

The Justice Department had asked Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of Federal District Court in Manhattan to delay a decision on whether to order the release of the memorandums, suggesting that the government might voluntarily release them. Government lawyers could turn them over this week or seek a further delay.

A White House spokesman, Ben LaBolt, declined to comment on internal talks about the disclosure issue, noting that the matter involved current litigation. A Justice Department spokesman, Matt Miller, said only that “the memos are being reviewed for possible release.”

The Obama administration has already made public some legal opinions from the Bush Justice Department, and both President Obama and Mr. Holder have pledged a new policy of openness. But they are listening to the objections of intelligence officials. Newsweek reported this week that Michael V. Hayden, who stepped down in February as C.I.A. director, was lobbying against disclosing the Bradbury memorandums.

Meanwhile, some Congressional Democrats have become frustrated with what they consider to be the slow pace in releasing information.

On Tuesday, two Democratic senators, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, wrote to the Justice Department to complain about delays in the release of a report by the its ethics office on the role of department lawyers in providing legal advice on waterboarding and other interrogation methods under President Bush.

A draft of the report completed in December by the department’s Office of Professional Responsibility is described by officials who have been briefed on its contents as highly critical of three authors of legal memorandums on interrogation: Jay S. Bybee, John C. Yoo and Mr. Bradbury.

Answering a query from the two senators last week, M. Faith Burton, the acting head of legislative affairs at the Justice Department, suggested that the report was far from ready for public release. She said copies had been given to the former department lawyers whose work it criticizes and the department was awaiting their comments before beginning additional reviews.

“Due to the complexity and classification level of the draft report, the review process described above likely will require substantial time and effort,” Ms. Burton wrote.

In their reply on Tuesday, Mr. Durbin and Mr. Whitehouse objected to the delays and expressed concern that the multiple reviews might water down the report.

In his presidential campaign, Mr. Obama repeatedly criticized the C.I.A.’s interrogation program and other counterterrorism programs. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. repeated the criticism at C.I.A. headquarters during the swearing in of the agency’s new director, Leon E. Panetta. But Mr. Obama has said he prefers to look forward rather than backward and has not endorsed a Congressional proposal for a “truth commission” to investigate Bush counterterrorism programs.

The question of what documents will be declassified and released promises to be a continuing challenge for the administration. As part of its lawsuit, the A.C.L.U. is seeking, among many other documents, material related to the destruction of C.I.A. interrogation videotapes, reports by the agency’s inspector general and Defense Department documents related to the abuse and death of prisoners.
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I don't normally touch on political decisions on this veterans news site, however so far the only ones ever held accountable were low ranking enlisted personnel from Abu Graib, and I for one do not believe "Rumsfeld or Cheney's explanation that they were jsut bad apples" the apparent problems at Abu Graib started within 2 weeks after General Miller and a training team arrived from Gitmo in Iraq and less than weeks later the pictures of the abuse were taken, also none of the non identified Intelligence people in the pics were prosecuted just the MPs, why?

I am sick and tired of low ranking personnel having to take the fall for programs that were obviously approved at the highest levels, and these memo's are just the beginning of the doors being opened on this nasty American history.

Spain is doing what our justice department should be doing, starting an investigation into war crimes approved by lawyers that worked at DOD, Justice and the White House and all the people involved SHOULD be held accountable. Not just the privates and NCO's, it's time the leaders and decision makers paid their debts to society.

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