Attorney General Eric Holder to Appoint Prosecutor to Investigate CIA Terror Interrogations

Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. has decided to appoint a prosecutor to examine nearly a dozen cases in which CIA interrogators and contractors may have violated anti-torture laws and other statutes when they allegedly threatened suspected terrorists, according the The Washington Post. This is move is contrary to President Barack Obama's position, but shows that Holder and his office operates independently of the president, quite unlike former President George W. Bush and his lackey AG Alberto Reynaldo Gonzales.

Holder is poised to name John Durham, a career Justice Department prosecutor from Connecticut, to lead the inquiry, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the process is not complete.

Durham's mandate, the sources added, will be relatively narrow: to look at whether there is enough evidence to launch a full-scale criminal investigation of current and former CIA personnel who may have broken the law in their dealings with detainees. Many of the harshest CIA interrogation techniques have not been employed against terrorism suspects for four years or more.

The attorney general selected Durham in part because the longtime prosecutor is familiar with the CIA and its past interrogation regime. For nearly two years, Durham has been probing whether laws against obstruction or false statements were violated in connection with the 2005 destruction of CIA videotapes. The tapes allegedly depicted brutal scenes including waterboarding of some of the agency's high value detainees. That inquiry is proceeding before a grand jury in Alexandria, although lawyers following the investigation have cast doubt on whether it will result in any criminal charges. Source: Washington Post

Ironically, this latest move comes on the same day as that the Obama administration will issue a 2004 report by the former CIA-Inspector General in which the effectiveness of harsh interrogation tactics were criticized. Let's see how vocal former VP Dick Cheney will be with this latest move, since he claimed the tactics used were correct.

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