Obama okays team to interrogate terrorists

By GottaLaff

Thank you, President Obama:

President Barack Obama has approved the establishment of a special unit of terrorist interrogators based out of the FBI, U.S. officials said Monday, confirming a report in the Washington Post.

The interagency High Value Detainee Interrogation Group will be overseen by the National Security Council and “draw on interrogators from defense, intelligence, and law enforcement,” a senior administration official said.

The State Department will also play a more prominent role in overseeing renditions of suspected terrorists to other countries for interrogation, the official added. The department will help ensure that suspected terrorists are not abused or tortured.

The decision to place the FBI in charge of the interrogation of suspected terrorists — as opposed to the Central Intelligence Agency — represents a major shift in U.S. national security policy. [...]

“The CIA didn’t want to house this initiative. They’re glad to be out of the long-term detention business,” a U.S. government official said.

More, via NPR:

The administration has also decided that all U.S. interrogators will follow the rules for detainees laid out by the Army Field Manual, according to senior administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the decision. That decision aims to end years of fierce debate over how rough U.S. personnel can get with terror suspects in custody.

The new unit does not mean the CIA is now out of the interrogation business, deputy White House press secretary Bill Burton told reporters covering the vacationing Obama at Oak Bluffs, Mass.

Lots of news breaking today. On to the next story....

UPDATE: Listening to Thom Hartmann Show right now, and this touting of the Army Field Manual as the golden standard should still be troubling to us. It would apparently still allow torture and mistreatment, Appendix M specifically, per Marjorie Cohn (MarjorieCohn.com).