Last week, we learned that the ACLU may have shown pictures of CIA interrogators to clients they're defending at Guantanamo, and Newsweek reported leaked information about the CIA conducting mock executions, including one with a power drill (the videotapes of the interrogation were later destroyed by the CIA). The 2004 Inspector General's report on "enhanced interrogation techniques," which has never been released in its entirety, is due out later today, and according to the New York Times, the Inspector General's there's an Office of Professional Responsibility report due out later today that recommends reopening "nearly a dozen" prisoner abuse cases involving CIA interrogators or contractors -- mostly in Iraq or Afghanistan. Mock executions were not part of the 2002 memo authorizing torture, so it's possible that whomever was involved in that might be criminally liable, since it goes beyond the program of "legally sanctioned" torture authorized by the Bush-era Justice Department.
That of course, is what makes the idea of prosecuting low-level interrogators so absurd to some human rights advocates -- including Human Rights Watch's Tom Malinowski, who described such an approach as "worse than nothing at all." The problem was that torture was legally approved at the highest levels of the administration -- it would seem absurd to pursue the "Abu Ghraib" strategy -- prosecute only those who tortured beyond the "legal limit" -- when the policy itself was one of abuse. It seems unlikely, given the destruction of the videotapes for example (which may in and of itself be a crime) that these are all cases of interrogators going rogue.
Other documents along with the IG Report are scheduled to be released, including, Newsweek reported, CIA documents that Dick Cheney requested because he believes they "prove" that the administration's torture program produced valuable intelligence. There's a problem of timing though--if the documents are dated way after the interrogation program ended, they'll look less like definitive proof the program worked and more like a retroactive justification of its existence--one that was crafted in anticipation of a potential criminal inquiry.
In the meantime, I suspect some of these leaks regarding previously unknown abuses are meant to preemptively justify whatever decision Attorney General Eric Holder makes about prosecutions -- but look for Republicans to attempt to use the inevitable political firestorm to do damage to the president, even though it's technically not his call. The GOP hates "death panels" -- torture panels are okay.
UPDATE: Okay, after reading my post again, I'd like to clarify. The 2004 Inspector General's report on enhanced interrogation that has never been fully released is due out later today, separate from that is a Office of Professional Responsibility recommendation that several cases of detainee abuse be reopened, which is what the Times reported on this morning.
-- A. Serwer
