WASHINGTON — For months, former Vice President Dick Cheney has argued that the worth of the Bush administration's aggressive interrogation program was proved in two secret CIA memos that he urged be released.
But those documents, and others that were finally unsealed Monday, are at best inconclusive -- attesting that captured terrorism suspects provided crucial intelligence on Al Qaeda and its plans, but offering little to support the argument that harsh or abusive methods played a key role.
The memos and a long-secret CIA inspector general report released the same day fill in details about the agency's embrace of harsh methods to get prisoners to talk. But they do not resolve a question that now seems likely to follow the Bush administration into the history books: Was it necessary to push moral and legal limits of detainee treatment to safeguard the country?
President Obama has insisted the answer is no. He set up a task force in January to examine interrogation options, but the panel steered clear of considering the inclusion of so-called enhanced techniques.
The president this week endorsed a task force recommendation to create an elite interrogation unit -- drawing on experts from throughout the government, not just the CIA -- that will abide by U.S. military guidelines when questioning terrorism suspects.
Cheney again lashed out at the Obama administration and refused to back away from his assertion that harsh interrogation methods worked.
The newly released documents "clearly demonstrate that the individuals subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques provided the bulk of the intelligence we gained about Al Qaeda," he said Monday night in a statement released by his office.
Obama's decision to allow the Justice Department to open a criminal probe of interrogators' conduct, and move authority for questioning prisoners away from the CIA, "serves as a reminder, if any were needed, of why so many Americans have doubts about this administration's ability to be responsible for our nation's security," Cheney said.
Responding to the criticism, an Obama administration official involved with the task force noted that the Bush administration itself had banned the most severe CIA methods years ago. The official was not authorized to speak publicly.
"Cheney seems to be the only one out there who wants to defend waterboarding as a lawful technique," the official said.
