Eric Holder's decision to appoint John Durham as a special prosecutor comes after the Justice Department's ethics office recommended reopening about a dozen cases. Justice to probe alleged CIA abuse

Attorney General Eric Holder has named a federal prosecutor to examine alleged CIA interrogation abuses — a move that could lead to the criminal prosecution of CIA officers and contractors and is sure rekindle the debate over how far the United States should go to get information from terror suspects.

Holder’s decision to assign the inquiry to a seasoned career prosecutor, John Durham of Connecticut, comes after the Justice Department’s ethics office recommended reopening about a dozen cases of prisoner abuse. Aides said Holder himself was so troubled by some of the reports that he felt a prosecutor might be needed — even though the move is likely to be viewed by the White House as an unwelcome distraction.


In a written statement about the inquiry, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs immediately invoked President Barack Obama’s mantra about focusing on the future, not the past, when it comes to questions how the Bush administration carried out its war on terror.

“The president has said repeatedly that he wants to look forward, not back, and the president agrees with the attorney general that those who acted in good faith and within the scope of legal guidance should not be prosecuted. Ultimately, determinations about whether someone broke the law are made independently by the attorney general,” Gibbs said.

But Holder suggested Monday that he was duty bound to refer the issues for further examination.

“I share the president’s conviction that as a nation, we must, to the extent possible, look forward, and not backward, when it comes to issues such as these. While this department will follow its obligation to take this preliminary step to examine possible violations of law, we will not allow our important work of keeping the American people safe to be sidetracked,” Holder insisted.

Holder said “the information known to me” warrants opening a preliminary investigation. But he stressed that “neither the opening of a preliminary review nor, if evidence warrants it, the commencement of a full investigation, means that charges will necessarily follow.”

Durham is already pursuing an inquiry left over from the Bush administration into the CIA’s destruction of videotapes of interrogations of high-level operatives. Holder suggested Durham was the most efficient course of action, since he and his aides have the proper security clearances and know the ropes at the CIA. “During the course of that investigation, Mr. Durham has gained great familiarity with much of the information that is relevant to the matter at hand,” the attorney general said.

The news of the inquiry into past interrogations came as the Justice Department released a CIA Inspector General report from 2004 that details some of the most extreme interrogation techniques used under the Bush Administration, including the use of a mock execution and a power drill to intimidate Al Qaeda operatives.

The White House also chose Monday, the first full day of Obama’s vacation on Martha’s Vineyard, to announce that he has decided to set up a new, elite terrorist interrogation team. However, officials said the new squad will limit the techniques it can employ to those already approved for military use — a restriction sure to chafe some who believe tougher tactics should be allowed against America’s most determined adversaries.

“The task force concluded that the Army Field Manual provides appropriate guidance on interrogation for military interrogators and that no other additional guidance is needed for others within the federal government who conduct interrogations,” a senior administration official said, speaking on condition of anonymity during a telephone briefing with reporters. “The practices and techniques within the Army Field Manual are currently used by law enforcement and provide adequate and effective means of conducting such interrogations.”

On his second full day as president, Obama limited all federal interrogators to the techniques in the Army Field Manual, but he also set up a task force to examine whether other approaches might be needed in some circumstances. The task force’s study was considered a nod to some in the government who favored keeping the option of using tougher tactics.

The new report calls for scientific studies which could augment the list of acceptable techniques, but an official said there would be “full transparency” if new techniques were adopted in the future.

The new interrogation group will be run by the FBI and include CIA personnel. It will operate under guidance from the National Security Council. “Its principal function [will be] intelligence gathering rather than law enforcement,” a senior official said. “The White House will not be involved in any type of operation of this group.”

The news on past and future interrogations also comes on the first full day of Obama’s vacation in Martha’s Vineyard. The timing may allow the most intense debate over the issues to dissipate before Obama returns to Washington next week to tackle health care reform and other domestic issues.

However, some of the most pressing and most vexing national security issues facing the administration — uch as how to carry out Obama’s promise to close Guantanamo by January — will not be resolved this week. Those are sure to spill over into September as Congress considers bills that deal with military and Justice Department funding for the fiscal year starting in October.

One former CIA official said he is doubtful that agencies will be willing to loan or transfer their best interrogators and linguists to a team which may only be activated to deal with high-level detainees. The problem will be exacerbated by the exceedingly thin ranks of security-cleared federal employees able to speak Arabic or other vital languages, said the ex-official.

Before September 11, 2001, the CIA never had significant expertise in interrogations, besides questioning of suspected spies. When pressed to oversee interrogations, the agency turned to contractors, many with military backgrounds. Some current and former CIA officials who see that decision as having besmirched the agency’s reputation have long been eager to get the agency out of the interrogation business.

Already, current CIA Director Leon Panetta weighed in on the release of the 2004 report on interrogations, with a letter to CIA employees saying the interrogations did obtain valuable information from Al Qaeda detainees.

“I make no judgments on the accuracy of the 2004 IG report or the various views expressed about it. Nor am I eager to enter the debate, already politicized, over the ultimate utility of the Agency’s past detention and interrogation effort,” Panetta wrote. “But this much is clear: The CIA obtained intelligence from high-value detainees when inside information on Al Qaeda was in short supply. Whether this was the only way to obtain that information will remain a legitimate area of dispute, with Americans holding a range of views on the methods used.”

But the new unit and the report are hardly the final word on interrogations from the Obama administration. Holder is facing a decision on whether to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Bush-era interrogation practices, including some cases where it is believed officers went even beyond the tactics allowed by the Justice Department.

Holder is widely expected to select a special prosecutor, but the exact scope of the duties remain unclear. The Justice Department’s ethics office has recommended reopening about a dozen prisoner-abuse cases, The New York Times reported Sunday — which could leave CIA employees vulnerable to prosecution.