By GottaLaff
As the attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr., debates whether to appoint a criminal prosecutor to investigate the interrogations of terrorism suspects after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he is at the brink of a career-defining decision that risks the anger of the White House and the Central Intelligence Agency, one of the Justice Department’s main partners in combating terrorism. [...]One word: Precedent. There has to be a way to hold those who broke the law responsible, or the crimes will continue. That much is a given. If you read Jane Mayer's The Dark Side, you'll more fully understand what atrocities occurred and how, under BushCo. Abuse continues, sadly, under the present administration. Fayiz al-Kandari would testify to that, if he and Lt. Col. Wingard were given a court date and access to evidence (other than hearsay).A decision by Mr. Holder to investigate would stand as a defining gesture of independence from Mr. Obama and would serve as a sharp contrast to predecessors like Alberto R. Gonzales, who was said by lawmakers in both parties to have run the Justice Department as a satellite office of the White House. [...]
Mr. Holder has told associates he is weighing a narrow investigation, focusing only on C.I.A. interrogators and contract employees who clearly crossed the line and violated the Bush administration’s guidelines and engaged in flagrantly abusive acts.
But in taking that route, Mr. Holder would run two risks. One is the political fallout if only a handful of low-level agents are prosecuted for what many critics see as a pattern of excess condoned at the top of the government. The other is that an aggressive prosecutor would not stop at the bottom, but would work up the chain of command, and end up with a full-blown criminal inquiry into the intelligence agencies — just the kind of broad, open-ended criminal investigation the Obama administration says it wants to avoid.
In a sense, Mr. Holder put himself in this awkward position. Earlier this year he successfully argued, in the face of C.I.A. protests, for the release of legal memorandums produced by the Justice Department during the Bush administration. [...]
A number of cases have been reviewed by nonpolitical prosecutors. But Mr. Holder is said to have raised questions about the thoroughness of some of those inquiries, including examinations of the deaths of detainees under C.I.A. and military control in Iraq. [...]
One of Mr. Holder’s first decisions, should he go forward with an inquiry, will be to determine who should investigate and what the scope of an investigation would be. Mr. Holder is said to have rejected the idea of naming an outside prosecutor and is considering candidates from inside the Justice Department.
The limited inquiry, at least initially, would review more than 20 abuse cases, including some involving prisoner deaths, which were referred to federal prosecutors in Virginia but did not result in prosecutions.
Former government lawyers involved in the cases have said they were, as one put it, “a complete mess.” Evidence had been lost or mishandled. Witnesses could not be located, and in some cases, not even the bodies of the deceased could be found.
In addition, an inquiry would probably examine whether the C.I.A. operatives who questioned high-level Qaeda detainees at secret prisons exceeded the Justice Department’s legal guidance. A footnote in a recently released 2005 Justice Department legal memorandum said that the C.I.A. inspector general had found in the 2004 report that interrogators used waterboarding with greater frequency and a larger volume of water than seemed to be approved by the Justice Department.
The Obama Justice Department knows very well what took place, and if you read that book, so will you, to some extent. How can these revelations not justify a full criminal investigation?
As for the state of the evidence, described as a "complete mess"... well, now I'm back to helping myself to another steaming pile of WTF.
All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.
If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.
If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.
Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.
More of Fayiz's story here, at Answers.com.
H/t: VNDNBRG
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