GOP Senators Urge Holder Not to Appoint Special Prosecutor on Torture
Aug. 19, 2009, 2:47 p.m.
By Emily Pierce
Roll Call Staff

Nine GOP Senators cautioned Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday
against appointing a special prosecutor to investigate alleged torture
of suspected terrorists at the hands of American intelligence agents and
contractors.

The group of Senators, which includes the vice chairman and four other
current members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, penned a letter to
Holder saying an investigation would “tarnish the careers, reputations,
and lives of intelligence community professionals” and that any
investigation would “chill future intelligence activities.”

“The intelligence community would be left to wonder whether actions
taken today in the interest of national security will be subject to
legal recriminations when the political winds shift,” the letter states.
“It is well past time for the Obama Administration to lift the cloud
that has been placed over those in the intelligence community and let
them return to the job of saving American lives.”

The letter was signed by Intelligence Vice Chairman Kit Bond (Mo.) and
Intelligence members Sens. Saxby Chambliss (Ga.), Tom Coburn (Okla.),
Orrin Hatch (Utah) and Richard Burr (N.C.), along with Minority Whip Jon
Kyl (Ariz.) and Sens. Jeff Sessions (Ala.), John Cornyn (Texas) and
Chuck Grassley (Iowa).

At issue for Holder is whether intelligence operatives or contractors
violated the law in using harsh interrogation tactics against high-level
terrorism detainees in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks. But many have speculated that top officials in the George W.
Bush administration, including former Vice President Dick Cheney, might
ultimately end up as the targets of any special Justice Department
investigation.

Cheney has publicly defended the use of severe interrogation methods,
saying they produced actionable intelligence that helped prevent further
terrorist attacks by al-Qaida. The nine GOP Senators echoed that
sentiment in their letter, saying that the harsh tactics used on alleged
9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed “produced information that was
absolutely vital to apprehending other al Qaeda terrorists and
preventing additional attack on the United States, including the West
Coast plot seeking to destroy the Library Tower in Los Angeles.”

In 2002, the Bush administration provided the CIA and intelligence
contractors with legal guidance as to what harsh methods they could use
in interrogations. But since those techniques — which included
waterboarding and prolonged sensory deprivation — were revealed, some
have questioned whether the United States had essentially legalized the
torture of prisoners. Even the Bush administration later revised its
legal guidelines to prohibit waterboarding.

When President Barack Obama came into office this year, he specifically
prohibited the use of those harsh interrogation methods.

While Obama has said he does not support prosecutions of agents or
contractors who operated within Bush-era legal guidelines, he has left
open the possibility that people who exceeded those instructions could
be held accountable.