Holder Names Prosecutor to Probe CIA Abuse Allegations

A special prosecutor will now determine if CIA interrogators or contractors, working under agency auspices, violated the law during the interrogation of suspected terrorists, the Justice Department announced today. Attorney General Eric Holder announced that Assistant U.S. Attorney John Durham, the Connecticut-based prosecutor who is already investigating the destruction of videotapes of CIA interrogations, will expand his current effort to include the new mandate.

News of the new inquiry comes on the day that the government was required to release several reviews of agency conduct, including the results of a 2004 CIA inspector general's report on alleged abuses committed during the interrogation regime. Holder said Durham will now decide "whether there is sufficient predication for a full investigation into whether the law was violated in connection with the interrogation of certain detainees."

The Obama administration also announced today the creation of a new team of antiterrorism interrogators, an effort headed by the FBI and including experts from the country's intelligence services, which will be in charge of questioning high-value detainees around the globe.

The abusive interrogation techniques allowed during the early years of the Bush administration and often called "enhanced interrogation techniques" ended several years ago. The new administration limited interrogators to the techniques outlined in the Army Field Manual.

"This is in many ways an old story," CIA chief Leon Panetta wrote in a note to CIA employees, adding that he was not eager to "enter the debate, already politicized, over the ultimate utility of the agency's past detention and interrogation effort."

Holder, meanwhile, stressed that the review was narrow in scope and designed to scrutinize only those who violated the law. "[DOJ] will not prosecute anyone who acted in good faith and within the scope of the legal guidance given by the Office of Legal Counsel regarding the interrogation of detainees."

The attorney general noted that the review would be controversial.

Activists on the left have been calling for a broad review of the Bush administration's efforts, even suggesting a truth commission, to investigate interrogation policies. Critics on the right, meanwhile, contend that another review of the spy agency will make the country's clandestine service risk averse at a time when it is involved in two wars and a fight against international terrorist networks.

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