ADVERTISEMENT Key CIA torture memos will be released John Byrne

Published: Thursday April 16, 2009





Print This Email This UPDATE (at bottom): Obama says the law requires memos to be released

The Obama Administration is likely to redact key elements of several "torture" memos promulgated by the Bush Administration which dictated which techniques could "legally" be applied during prisoner interrogations.



Two officials told the Wall Street Journal Wednesday that " certain operational elements " of the program are to be kept secret, as well as what techniques were applied to particular prisoners.



Most likely to be kept from the spotlight is details in a still-classified memorandum which approved a method in which a prisoner's head could be struck against a plywood wall "as long as the head was being held and the force of the blow was controlled by the interrogator."



Such a technique was outlined in an International Red Cross report that was leaked to a reporter at the New York Review of Books. That story told of guards tying towels around at least two prisoners' necks and hurling them against a plywood wall, among numerous other macabre torture techniques.



Marc Ambinder, a veteran correspondent for The Atlantic, reported Wednesday that senior Administration officials "said that the Journal story does not reflect the current state of thinking, [but] would not disclose what decisions had been made."



"Holder, the attorney general, and others have argued internally that most of the information contained within the memo has already been released," Ambinder wrote. "The ACLU and other civil liberties groups have obtained more than 100,000 pages of formerly secret documents. The International Committee of the Red Cross's damning report on detention and torture was leaked to reporter Mark Danner last month; federal prosecutors and senior military officials have acknowledged, in detail, that not only were prisoners in CIA and military custody tortured, but described the means used to torture them.



"Others, knowing Washington's ways, believe that if the CIA is worried that some of the torture methods are truly gruesome, well, that's exactly the first bit of information that an enterprising official will leak," Ambinder added. "More headlines will be made."



An announcement on the release of the Bush-era torture memos is expected today.

UPDATE: Obama says the law requires memos to be released

"President Barack Obama says the release of legal opinions governing harsh questioning of terrorism suspects is required by the law and should help address 'a dark and painful chapter in our history,'" according to an Associated Press report.



"Obama issued a statement accompanying Thursday's release of four significant memos written by the Bush administration in 2002 and 2005. The president said that the interrogation techniques outlined in the memos 'undermine our moral authority and do not make us safer.'"





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