Tough Choices
WASHINGTON — Pressure mounted on President Obama on Monday for more thorough investigation into harsh interrogations of terrorism suspects under the Bush administration, even as he tried to reassure the Central Intelligence Agency that it would not be blamed for following legal advice.
Mr. Obama said it was time to admit “mistakes” and “move forward.” But there were signs that he might not be able to avoid a protracted inquiry into the use of interrogation techniques that the president’s top aides and many critics say crossed the line into torture.
And while Mr. Obama vowed not to prosecute C.I.A. officers for acting on legal advice, on Monday aides did not rule out legal sanctions for the Bush lawyers who developed the legal basis for the use of the techniques.
The president’s decision last week to release secret memorandums detailing the harsh tactics employed by the C.I.A. under his predecessor provoked a furor that continued to grow on Monday as critics on various fronts assailed his position. Among other things, the memos revealed that two captured Qaeda operatives were subjected to a form of near-drowning known as waterboarding a total of 266 times.
While I don't agree with Obama's choice to not prosecute (it echoes Clinton's decision not to investigate Iran-Contra; an act that Republicans thanked him for by impeaching him) that fact that he decided to release the memos is still slick in that it exposed all of these yahoos in the last Administration for liars. I know it's not much to the liberals who want G.W. Bush to go to jail, but the outright discrediting of these guys has its advantages.
Oh, and it seems to have taken people's mind off of the crappy economy and the two wars we're still fighting.
Comments