Despite the fact that many in power are reluctant to investigate the Bush Administration decisions about "harsh interrogation" it is clear now that the CIA acted outside the legal guidelines established by the Department of Justice OLC memos written by John Yoo and Jay Bybee in 2002. In particular, the CIA use of waterboarding appears to have crossed the line into what would "shock the conscience" of most people- torture.

Nonetheless, many remain opposed to exploring these potential crimes. President Obama has said on several occasions that he did not favor investigations or prosecutions for EIT, but preferred to "look forward":

Asked for the first time to respond to the likelihood that Spanish prosecutors will target officials in the Bush administration for sanctioning torture at Guantanamo Bay, Barack Obama stressed, once again, that he prefers to look forward, not backward.

With an opportunity like this to slink off under a rock and be forgotten, one might expect John Yoo, Dick Cheney and the torture captains of the CIA to keep a low profile and let the furor from the left die down.

But this is the opposite of what is happening.

Dick Cheney and the torture architects are full-throttle unrepentant, clearly angling for a public showdown. And most tellingly, they are engaged in a simultaneous, aggressive campaign to implicate leading Democrats in the program:

Present or former members of the CIA have been engaged in a "leak war" aimed at Democrats who were briefed or otherwise associated with the Bush Administration EIT program.

Porter Goss or his devotees went after Jane Harman. CIA leakers went to Pete Hoekstra and ABC news to release misleading logs of congressional briefings of EIT that implicated Nancy Pelosi and Jay Rockefeller in decision making.



What is Going on?

I argue that Cheney and the torture program architects believe that investigations of some sort are inevitable. I think this is their reasoning:

A true belief that Torture is Necessary.

A true belief that Americans will agree that Torture is Necessary.

An understanding that with more and more leaked documents, calls for investigation and prosecution will never stop.

An understanding that the Obama Administration now controls access to all of the documents and can declassify them in a sequence or pattern that damages any claims of "necessity". Specifically, it is now clear that Obama will declassify the CIA Office of Inspector General Report that found that EITs were not effective.

An understanding that Republicans do not control any congressional committees. Democrats own subpoena power for any congressional torture inquiries.

In short, they are playing a big game of chicken with Congressional Democrats to bring forward INDEPENDENT investigations. They are implicating/sullying leading Democrats (Pelosi, Harman, Rockefeller) to try to make a case that any investigations and subpoenas should not be from the "deeply complicit" congress. I think they believe that the inevitable investigations would be fairer to them if run by an independent prosecutor.

Dick Cheney is evil, but he is not stupid. He is taunting Congressional Democrats to establish investigations. Will Democrats lose the game of chicken and drive the investigations into a ditch? If Congressional Democrats blink and decide to "look forward", Cheney's reckless bravado will go unchallenged and Congressional Democrats will, by inaction, admit their guilt in the Torture Regime. The precedent for State-sanctioned torture by the US Government will stand.