Bush-Era Lawyers Won't Be Disciplined For Controversial Interrogation Memos

In a Friday document dump (jargon describing when an administration releases embarrassing--to them--information after all the "journalists" have left for the weekend), the Justice Department as expected cleared two Justice Department lawyers from any professional misconduct in connection with harsh terrorist-interrogation techniques:

Two Bush administration lawyers who authorized harsh interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects used poor judgment but will not face punishment, the U.S. Justice Department said on Friday in summarizing a lengthy ethics report.

The department's Office of Professional Responsibility had originally found that the lawyers, John Yoo and Jay Bybee, had engaged in professional misconduct, according to a letter sent to the House Judiciary Committee leaders.

The department's Office of Professional Responsibility had originally found that the lawyers, John Yoo and Jay Bybee, had engaged in professional misconduct, according to a letter sent to the House Judiciary Committee leaders.

The harsh techniques they authorized included waterboarding of terrorism suspects as the Bush administration tried to elicit intelligence after the September 11, 2001, attacks for capturing or killing anti-American al Qaeda militants.

However, Associate Deputy Attorney General David Margolis reviewed the ethics report as well as responses by Yoo and Bybee and decided not to adopt that finding, according to the letter by Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich.

 Source: NBC/Reuters

Terrorists Wanted Dead Rather Than Alive?

It's obvious that the Obama administration is in total disarray in connection with its confused interrogation policies for enemy combatants and ill-advised plans to put terrorists on trial in civil courts. But according to the Washington Post, the administration has apparently come up with a third way, one that that eliminates all that messy and complicated legal mumbo jumbo:

When a window of opportunity opened to strike the leader of al-Qaeda in East Africa last September, U.S. Special Operations forces prepared several options. They could obliterate his vehicle with an airstrike as he drove through southern Somalia. Or they could fire from helicopters that could land at the scene to confirm the kill. Or they could try to take him alive.

The White House authorized the second option. On the morning of Sept. 14, helicopters flying from a U.S. ship off the Somali coast blew up a car carrying Saleh Ali Nabhan. While several hovered overhead, one set down long enough for troops to scoop up enough of the remains for DNA verification. Moments later, the helicopters were headed back to the ship.

The strike was considered a major success, according to senior administration and military officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the classified operation and other sensitive matters. But the opportunity to interrogate one of the most wanted U.S. terrorism targets was gone forever.

The Nabhan decision was one of a number of similar choices the administration has faced over the past year as President Obama has escalated U.S. attacks on the leadership of al-Qaeda and its allies around the globe. The result has been dozens of targeted killings and no reports of high-value detentions.

Obama to Appont Terrorist Czar?

How does an administration respond when its domestic agenda verges on imploding? It's generally called "Operation Change The Subject," through a manufactured scandal and a related witchhunt.

The Obama administration launched a criminal investigation Monday into harsh questioning of detainees during President George W. Bush's war on terrorism, revealing CIA interrogators' threats to kill one suspect's children and to force another to watch his mother sexually assaulted.

At the same time, President Barack Obama ordered changes in future interrogations, bringing in other agencies besides the CIA under the direction of the FBI and supervised by his own national security adviser. The administration pledged questioning would be controlled by the Army Field Manual, with strict rules on tactics, and said the White House would keep its hands off the professional investigators doing the work.

Despite the announcement of the criminal probe, several Obama spokesmen declared anew—as the president has repeatedly—that on the subject of detainee interrogation he "wants to look forward, not back" at Bush tactics. They took pains to say decisions on any prosecutions would be up to Attorney General Eric Holder, not the White House.

Monday's five-year-old report by the CIA's inspector general, newly declassified and released under a federal court's orders, described severe tactics used by interrogators on terror suspects after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Seeking information about possible further attacks, interrogators threatened one detainee with a gun and a power drill and tried to frighten another with a mock execution of another prisoner.

It remains to be seen if there is any legal culpability on the part of the interrogators, but this administration has a unique approach to homeland security: try to release the bad guys, and prosecute the (arguably) good guys. And harsher techniques have been on display in any given episode of The Shield.

AG Holder tapped New Haven, CT, career federal prosecutor John Durham to conduct the initial investigation into whether there is enough evidence to warrant a full investigation of whether current or former CIA employees violated anti-torture or other laws while questioning high-value terror detainees.

Writing in the Washington Post, former CIA general counsel Jeffery Smith provides six reasons why such prosecutions would not be in the national interest:

•These techniques were authorized by the president and approved by the Justice Department. The relevant committees of Congress were briefed. Although the Justice Department's initial legal opinions were badly flawed, the fact remains that the agency responsible for interpreting and enforcing the law said the techniques were "legal." That alone will make prosecutions very difficult.

•the CIA provided the inspector general's report to the Justice Department in 2004. Justice has not prosecuted any CIA officers but did successfully prosecute a contractor who beat a detainee to death, an incident that was initially reported to the department by the CIA...Prosecutions would set the dangerous precedent that criminal law can be used to settle policy differences at the expense of career officers.

• after Justice declined to prosecute, the CIA took administrative action, including disciplinary action against those officers whose conduct it deemed warranted such responses.

•prosecuting CIA officers risks chilling current intelligence operations.

• prosecutions could deter cooperation with other nations. It is critical that we have the close cooperation of intelligence services around the world.

• President Obama has decisively changed the policies that caused so much damage.

Apparently the administration may continue the controversial rendition policy.