Word: harshly
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President Obama's decision to declassify Justice Department memos detailing the interrogation techniques legalized by his predecessor has sparked a predictable partisan furor. Bush Administration officials say the release has somehow compromised national security and let the enemy in on our secrets--even though U.S. interrogators' use of harsh and even sadistic techniques has been known for years. Liberals criticized the President for initially rejecting the idea of prosecuting former Bush officials, though Obama later said he is open to a 9/11-commission-style inquiry into interrogation abuses...
Less than a day after President Barack Obama told CIA employees in person that he didn't support prosecuting them for the harsh interrogations of terrorism suspects, he left open the possibility that those who drafted the legal opinions justifying such questionable techniques could end up facing charges. The surprising statement marked just the latest step in Obama's evolving view of the Bush Administration's handling of terrorism cases, and it underscored the fine line he is navigating in his stated commitments to uphold the rule of law and at the same time move beyond the divisive Bush years...
...retrospect, the apparent change of heart was almost a self-fulfilling prophecy: after all, it was Obama himself who last week ordered the release of four Bush Administration legal memos justifying interrogations that included waterboarding, sleep deprivation and other harsh methods. The documents - with their excruciating details largely intact, despite CIA Director Leon Panetta's call that more be blacked out - outraged partisans on both sides...
...Obama Administration has already ruled out the prosecution of those who actually carried out the harsh interrogations, so long as they complied with the government-approved guidelines. And Obama treaded carefully on Tuesday, stressing to reporters at the end of his Tuesday meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah that he did "not want to prejudge" the outcome of the Justice Department's inquiry into the policy's legal underpinnings and that he would not want any inquiry to turn into a partisan witch hunt. "I do worry about this getting so politicized that we cannot function effectively, and it hampers...
...presidential nod on Tuesday toward the creation of what some are calling a "truth commission" to ferret out the origin of the harsh interrogations is likely to get renewed traction. Democrats Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Representative John Conyers of Michigan, who head the two congressional judiciary committees, have argued for such a panel, modeled on the widely respected one that studied 9/11. Having sparked the current conflagration by releasing the memos, Obama can only hope that creating such a commission could tamp it down - and keep this political firestorm from sucking up the valuable political oxygen he needs...