Prosecute Bush Officials On Torture? Sen. Levin To NPR: Commission Good 1st Step

The genie -- interrogation methods used by the CIA against suspected terrorists, approved by the Bush administration in the aftermath of 9/11 -- is out of the bottle.

President Obama's decision to release secret memos detailing these tactics, which included waterboarding, has unleashed a firestorm of controversy and anger, mostly centered on what kind of punishment, if any, should be administered to those who formulated and approved the policies.

Once, the mantra of the Obama administration was to look forward, not to "dwell on the past." No longer. The graphic details of the harsh techniques that were released have resulted in a renewed call to punish those responsible. The president is now open to that.

In a piece that aired today on NPR's All Things Considered, correspondent Mary Louise Kelly alluded to a 232-page report by the Senate Armed Services Committee, made public last night, that "found that military interrogators treated prisoners brutally ... that such treatment was widespread and systematic ... and that it was approved at senior levels in the Bush administration." Kelly points out that the findings "are largely consistent with previous investigations" and that "many of those details have already been widely reported."

But with all these details coming out at once, the reaction has been deafening -- and ferocious.

Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies says in Kelly's piece that it's a "damning account":

What this report raises is a very clear picture of an administration that didn't check its facts, didn't get perspective, didn't really go to the experts, and ignored history. ...

But sometimes it is the sheer weight of the evidence which speaks for itself. It is the fact that there is such a clear, cumulative pattern. And what is missing is that there's very little to justify the claim that these techniques paid off in ways where other far more orthodox interrogation techniques could not have been equally or more successful.

There is debate on that point. Former Vice President Dick Cheney has been the loudest advocate of the view that the tactics resulted in real information. He insists that it's not a coincidence that the U.S. has not experienced a terrorist attack since 2001, and he has called on the Obama administration to release documents showing that the interrogation techniques are responsible for that success.

Dennis Blair, Obama's national intelligence director, seemed to signal a similar viewpoint in an internal memo last week, saying that "high-value information came from interrogation in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al-Qaida organization that was attacking the country." (He has since backed away from that position, presumably under pressure from the White House, saying that there's "no way of knowing" whether that information could have been obtained by utilizing other methods.)

An interview with Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, followed Kelly's piece tonight on ATC. Levin told host Robert Siegel that the committee's focus is now less on who carried out the policies and more on who was responsible for formulating them. He deplored the fact that there was "no accountability at the highest levels." These practices "damaged the security of the United States," Levin said. He called for -- as others have -- the establishment of a nonpolitical commission, perhaps comprising retired federal judges, to oversee the investigation. "We've got to keep it out of politics," he maintained.

Good luck.

It was politics -- or, at least, outrage from congressional Democrats who just returned from their Easter break -- that forced the administration to change its tune. (On that score, you should listen to David Welna, NPR congressional correspondent, talk about this during today's Political Junkie segment on Talk of the Nation.)

As we said at the start of this post, the genie is out of the bottle. And it shows no sign of abating. Certainly among the subjects at hand:

-- What to do about now-federal judge Jay Bybee, who as a Bush Justice Department attorney in 2002 signed off on the memo authorizing the interrogation tactics, deciding it did not fall under the category of "torture." Some Democrats are calling for his impeachment (for the record, Bybee's appointment to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a fellow Nevadan). The state's other senator, Republican John Ensign, called the suggested removal of Bybee from the bench "outrageous" and "ridiculous."

-- Can we ever answer with certainty, one way or the other, the relationship between the interrogation tactics and the lack of attacks on U.S. soil since 9/11?

-- Will this consume the 111th Congress between now and Nov. 2, 2010?

Regarding the role of the former VP, a question here from Paul Dorsey of Portland, Ore.:

What power does Dick Cheney have to ask the CIA to declassify certain documents since he is out of office?

The aforementioned Mr. Welna has the answer:

As the former vice president, Cheney has the right to ask the National Archives to declassify documents from his time in office that he wants made public. He did precisely that in seeking the declassification of memos he says show that valuable information was obtained using "enhanced interrogation techniques." The National Archives forwarded his request to the CIA, where it is apparently now under review.