Only the most cynical could have guessed in 2008 that it would be Obama’s own administration that stood in the way of the torture report’s publication

When a fiery young presidential candidate called Barack Obama said he would not want his first term as president “consumed” by a witch hunt into torture, many observers took it as a sign he would carry out his promised truth and reconciliation exercise quickly if elected.



“If I found out that there were high officials who knowingly, consciously broke existing laws, engaged in cover-ups of those crimes with knowledge forefront, then I think a basic principle of our constitution is nobody above the law,” he added in interviews during the 2008 primary race that helped set him apart from an equivocal Hillary Clinton on the issue.

Only the most cynical could have guessed back then that it would take six years even for a limited official account of what happened to emerge, that it would be Obama’s own administration that stood in the way of its publication and that no one would end up taking personal responsibility for the crimes or the cover-up.

But, like the practice of enhanced interrogation itself, this dark addendum to the story of the US war on terror has served mainly to illustrate the compromises of power rather than shed meaningful light on its uses.

Though he moved quickly after the 2008 inauguration to ban the use of torture in future, it was to take a year for Obama to even begin to try to find out how and why it happened in the recent past.

Attorney general Eric Holder announced an initial Department of Justice investigation in 2009, but he and Obama now claimed the exercise was a “time for reflection, not retribution” and made clear that interrogators would be granted immunity if they could be shown to have been following orders.

Another three years were to pass before, in August 2012, the DOJ confirmed that the last outstanding investigation of 101 detainees alleging abuse had closed and concluded that no charges should be brought.

“Our inquiry was limited to a determination of whether prosecutable offenses were committed and was not intended to, and does not resolve, broader questions regarding the propriety of the examined conduct,” said Holder.

Instead, the roles were to be reversed when another far less likely champion took up the fight for transparency and it was Obama’s own people who did most to get in the way.

Senator Dianne Feinstein’s role as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee had until this point largely been notable for its fierce defense of the intelligence community’s freedom to act as it saw fit.

Her patience finally snapped when the CIA was caught interfering with the committee’s staff members and even hacking into their computers during attempts to investigate the agency’s role in torture.

CIA director John Brennan, one of several Bush-era officials to remain in powerful positions throughout Obama’s administration, eventually admitted spying on the committee that was meant to oversee its activities, issuing a half-hearted apology for the breathtaking breach of constitutional protocol.

But it was not just the many Bush officials who remained in the halls of power that tilted the Obama administration away from confronting the issue head on.

Obama’s first chief of staff and Chicago confidant Rahm Emmanuel reportedly dressed down former defense secretary Leon Panetta for agreeing to co-operate with the Senate inquiry.

“I was summoned to a meeting in the Situation Room, where I was told I would have to ‘explain’ this deal to Rahm … It did not take long to get ugly,” Panetta claimed in his memoir, Worthy Fights. “’The president wants to know who the f**k authorized this to the committees,’ Rahm said, slamming his hand down on the table. “I have a president with his hair on fire and I want to know what the f**k you did to f**k this up so bad.”

Even when the report was finally ready, Obama continued to use his top aides to frustrate its release, sending Emanuel’s successor Denis McDonough to negotiate the extensive redactions demanded by the CIA with Feinstein personally.

The White House argues it has sought to act as an honest broker with the intelligence community over the report and Obama himself has returned to more fiery condemnation of torture in recent weeks as publication has drawn near.

But unlike other failed campaign promises such as closing Guantánamo Bay, the administration cannot point to legal or Congressional impediments to taking unilateral action to override the CIA.

At best, the pattern of obfuscation and delay points to a practical wish not to weaken the effectiveness of the intelligence services during sensitive periods such as the hunt for Osama bin Laden or the fight against the Islamic State. At worst, it points to an administration seduced by the same arguments about ends justifying means that corrupted its predecessors.

Either way it’s a long way from the heady days of Obama’s campaign pledge that when he became president “we will again set an example for the world that the law is not subject to the whims of stubborn rulers, and that justice is not arbitrary,”