Obama Inner Circle Debated Memos' Release

Washington Post: Aides Were On Opposite Sides In One Of The Sharpest Policy Divides Of The Young Administration

(Washingtonpost.com)  This story was written by R. Jeffrey Smith, Michael D. Shear and Walter Pincus.

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As President Obama met with top advisers on the evening of April 15, he faced one of the sharpest policy divides of his young administration.

Five CIA directors -- including Leon E. Panetta and his four immediate predecessors -- and Obama's top counterterrorism adviser had expressed firm opposition to the release of interrogation details in four "top secret" memos in which Bush administration lawyers sanctioned harsh tactics.

On the other side of the issue were Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair and White House counsel Gregory B. Craig, whose colleagues during the campaign recall him expressing enthusiasm for fixing U.S. detainee policy.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates had said he supported the disclosures because he saw the information's release as inevitable and because the White House was willing to promise that CIA officers would not be prosecuted for any abuse. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen sided with Gates.

Seated in Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel's West Wing office with about a dozen of his political, legal and security appointees, Obama requested a mini-debate in which one official was chosen to argue for releasing the memos and another was assigned to argue against doing so. When it ended, Obama dictated on the spot a draft of his announcement that the documents would be released, while most of the officials watched, according to an official who was present. The disclosure happened the next day.

Obama's aides have told political allies that the last-minute conversation, which ended around 9:30 p.m., demonstrated the president's commitment to airing both sides of a debate that was particularly contentious. But it also reflected widespread angst inside the White House that a public airing and repudiation of the harsh interrogation techniques that the last administration sought to keep secret would spark a national security debate with conservatives that could undermine Obama's broader agenda.

Several top aides had argued, for example, that the question of whether to release the memos should be put before a "truth commission," effectively postponing resolution of the issue for months. But Obama vetoed the idea on the grounds that it would create the divisive debate his closest advisers feared -- a viewpoint he reiterated at a meeting with lawmakers yesterday. Craig also argued persuasively, other officials said, that the federal judge in New York overseeing a lawsuit seeking the memos' release was unlikely to approve any significant delay.

Now Obama is being lashed by former Bush appointees and is facing growing pressure to accept such a commission. Some liberal activist groups presented petitions with 250,000 signatures to Holder at a House hearing yesterday, asking him to appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate the originators of the interrogation tactics. Meanwhile, debate is swirling in Washington not only about the merits of the techniques but also about the wisdom of Obama's decision to exercise his unique authority to instantly transform the "top secret" documents into public ones.

This account is based on interviews with more than a dozen officials, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk about the internal deliberations.

Several Obama aides said the president's decision was in line with his frequent criticism during the campaign of President George W. Bush's policies on interrogations at secret prisons. On his second day in office, Obama banned the prisons and the tactics in an executive order.

The aides also said they hope the memos' release will focus public attention on the coldness and sterility of the legal justifications for abusive techniques, with Obama telling reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday that the documents demonstrate that the nation lost its "moral bearings" in the Bush years.

A source familiar with White House views said Obama's advisers are further convinced that letting the public know exactly what the past administration sanctioned will undermine what they see as former vice president Richard B. Cheney's effort to "box Obama in" by claiming that the executive order heightened the risk of a terrorist attack.

Officials say the process of rolling back the controversial policy began shortly before Obama took office, when the president-elect dispatched half a dozen experts to the CIA for two days of secret briefings in the director's conference room.

At the time, Obama was leaning toward adopting the Army Field Manual rules for intelligence interrogations but wanted to receive a broader perspective. He sent Craig; retired Gen. James L. Jones, now the national security adviser; foreign policy adviser Denis McDonough; former senators David L. Boren (D-Okla.) and Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.); and former CIA general counsel Jeffrey H. Smith to Langley.

During the meetings, then-CIA Director Michael V. Hayden, his deputy Steve Kappes and about 20 other senior CIA officers sought to explain the agency's counterterrorism and rendition programs and to present the best case for retaining the option of reestablishing secret prisons and using aggressive interrogation methods, according to four of those present. Hayden emphasized that the agency had discarded most of the old programs, including the secret prisons, in 2006.

The use of waterboarding ended in 2003, but Hayden said he wanted to keep the flexibility to utilize some of the other, less controversial techniques. Boren and Smith said the group was not convinced that whatever useful intelligence had been gleaned from the programs warranted keeping them as an option.

"They said that they had produced valuable intelligence," Smith said. "We took them at their word." But the group's consensus was that "whatever utility it had at the outset . . . the secret prisons and enhanced techniques were no longer playing a useful role -- the costs outweighed the gains." He said those costs included obvious damage to the nation's values and identity, and problems with U.S. allies that strongly opposed the use of such methods.

Boren, who chaired the Senate intelligence committee from 1987 to 1993 and is now president of the University of Oklahoma, said that attending the briefings was "one of the most deeply disturbing experiences I have had" and that "I wanted to take a bath when I heard it. I was ashamed of it." He said he concluded that "fear was used to justify the use of techniques that violate our values and weaken our intelligence" and that the agency did not prove those methods "are particularly effective at getting the truth."

One of those present said that when asked, the CIA officers acknowledged that some foreign intelligence agencies had refused, for example, to share information about the location of terrorism suspects for fear of becoming implicated in any eventual torture of those suspects. Sources said that Jones shared these concerns and that, as a former military officer, he worried that any use of harsh interrogations by the United States could make it more likely that American soldiers in captivity would be subjected to similar tactics.

The issue of releasing the Justice Department memos, which Craig first reviewed in December, became the focus of attention in mid-March, when the department's lawyers warned the White House of an April 2 federal court deadline that could force their hand. They told Craig they were prepared to offer a legal defense for keeping all or part of the memos secret but warned it would not be a strong case, in part because much of the information was included in a leaked report by the International Committee of the Red Cross summarizing detainee mistreatment.

Craig and others in the White House were aware of the legal and political implications of both partial and full disclosure of the memos, and with the president they began consultations on how to proceed. Meanwhile, the Justice Department received an extension from the court.

In a series of small gatherings over the next two weeks, before Obama went to Europe, he and his staff met with officials from the CIA, the Pentagon, the intelligence director's office, the State Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. A full National Security Council meeting and another gathering of principals followed, in which Cabinet members met in the White House situation room and were later joined by the president. Obama continued to huddle with aides on the topic during breaks in his European trip.

A key last-minute debate emerged over whether to redact details of the interrogation methods while releasing the legal explanations underpinning the approvals. Panetta had no objection to disclosing the analysis but "strongly opposed declassification of their operational content," according to an intelligence official. His fear was that it would plant doubts in foreign governments about the U.S. ability to shroud collaborative activities, and he predicted -- accurately -- that it would lead to calls for more investigations.

Gates told reporters yesterday that he "was quite concerned, as you might expect, with the potential backlash in the Middle East and in the theaters where we're involved in conflict, and that it might have a negative impact on our troops. All that said, you know, we just had a significant investigation release by the Senate Armed Services Committee. . . . And so there is a certain inevitability, I believe, that much of this will eventually come out; much has already come out. . . . I think all of us wrestled with it for quite some time, in terms of where we were on it."

Staff writers Peter Finn, Joby Warrick and Ann Scott Tyson and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

[globalcoolin]

how many terrorist attacks were thwarted by US INTERROGATION METHODS? we can be told that, but Obama don't want people to know---but he does want the public (and so the enemy 0 to know the technigues.
How weird!
Well, most American Liberals want to apologize for being "Ugly Americans" to The World but because they have an ugly concept that EVERYBODY in the whole world is an American--and protected by the US Constitution--even as they wage criminal violence against REAL US citizens.
It's weird that Obama keeps publicly divulging military intentions to the enemy threw his WERREGONNA teleprompter.
It's all so very q...gay!

[Export_the_Liberals]

He will NEVER release all the Bush era memo's and NEVER allow a commission for a couple very important reasons....

1. Pelosi was briefed in detail about water boarding and then voted for and approved its use.
2. Reid did the same.

Lying Leftist Liberals... "LLL: is the new "KKK"

ha

[jedi0849]

Horrible decision. Obama needs to stick to relying on the teleprompter for his decisions.

[jxknowles]

We have a right to know. It was a good decision.

[searingtruth]

"...What a bunch of wusses these great American "patriots" are today. Americans used to be willing to die for their principles..."
tokyo2nite


Indeed, and well spoken fellow patriot.
ST


"Unlike our founding fathers, we are not asked to forge towards the defeat of some implacable enemy through fields and valleys awash with filth and blood. We are not asked to leave our homes, our land, and our families on an almost certainly fatal journey with little hope of return. And we are not asked to die the brutal and agonizing death of so many anonymous patriots, whose last anguished cry was freedom, alone on some cold and desolate battlefield.

No my friends, all we are asked to do is stand up and fight with our voices and our unaltered votes."
SearingTruth, A Future of the Brave

A Future of the Brave

[tokyo2nite]

"Meanwhile, debate is swirling in Washington not only about the merits of the techniques but also about the wisdom of Obama's decision to exercise his unique authority to instantly transform the "top secret" documents into public ones. ?

Funny, innit? Cheney claimed that disclosure of those memos would be so damaging to the US because it would give away secrets to our enemies about our methods (haha, even though we *got* the methods from our enemies the Stalinist and Maoist communists), but now he's all for declassifying CIA documents about what information was actually gleaned by using the techniques. So now it's not about secrecy or legality, only about the efficacy. So according to Cheney, if it works, do it. Back to the middle ages, pull out fingernails, use the rack, nothing but a little "psychological pressure," no lasting harm (fingernails grow back, after all).

What a bunch of wusses these great American "patriots" are today. Americans used to be willing to die for their principles (stuff like Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty or give me death"; or Nathan Hale's "I regret that I have but one life to give for my country"), but today's "patriots" are so scared of dying they're the first to sign away their honor for what they mistakenly think is a tiny bit of security. The Bible calls that "selling your birthright for a mess of pottage"; Franklin said it best, "He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security."

[searingtruth]

"It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at no distant period, a great Nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a People always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence."
George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796

A Future of the Brave

[pensacola8-2009]

If the CIA wants to block anything, ignore them. The arrogance of the CIA is appauling and the citizens have good reason not to trust them. Even former DOD employees of the intelligence community know the CIA has enemies everywhere.

Some CIA field agents need to go to jail or be "broken". They know what I mean. They know who they are.

The NSA has one task at hand - protecting the Nukes in Pakistan from being taken by Taliban forces. If those NSA operatives can trust their CIA field agents, (which I don't and won't) they will work overtime to stop India from launching an agression in the even that Pakistan is toppled by the Taliban.

Gates has some serious trouble in his intel ranks that needs addressing. He must not allow any tied to the torture scandal to continue their duties. Those agents need to come home and face their music.

President Obama does not need a CIA or VP Scandal to deal with while a war is going on. He can squelch it with a pardon (although unpopular) to VP, and let the CIA discipline their agents in secret disgrace.

The torture inquiry can drag on with devastating facts to face, but this is not the time to face those details. When the war is over, all the investigators can backfill the footsteps of the scandal and write history as they see fit.

The political report card for this issue is a "C". The military report card for this is an "A". Political Leadership must not erode with scandal, although it is unavoidable.

The scrupples are best faced by those who were in charge, but they must transfer the guard and give up their political influence and permit the Obama administration to preside and discharge their duties without any undermining from a scandal.

[searingtruth]

"The best and only safe road to honor, glory, and true dignity is justice."
George Washington, letter to Marquis de Lafayette, September 30, 1779

A Future of the Brave

[kesac4650]

When the next 9/11 type attack occurs on American soil, and thousands of innocents die, once again the question will be asked, "why didn't our government do everything necesary to protect us?"
Because we are too "nice". Remember that if any of the next victims are your children, or family or friends.
Coercion is not torture. Torture leaves a person broken in body or in mind. Coercion is just a bluff that creates a phsychological effect but no lasting harm.
Obama's "New Kids on the block", just handed our sworn enemy a jackpot full of information to allow them to train and prepare for interrogation in the event of capture.

[pauldia-2009]

Give it up the supreme court already ruled the document provided was proff of birth in the US. Get over it...Posted by Livinontheedge

Sorry, incorrect. The SCOTUS never ruled on the issue, they have kicked it back to a lower court. Check the filings. Ask yourself why over one million dollars so far and counting is being spent to fight this eligibility issue? The FEC has the disbursements, if you need the link to the info here is some backgound: ...." President Obama may be using campaign funds to stomp out eligibility lawsuits brought by Americans, as his campaign has paid more than $1 million to his top lawyer since the election.

According to Federal Election Commission records, Obama For America paid $688,316.42 to international law firm Perkins Coie between January and March 2009.


FEC's Obama For America 2009 April quarterly report, disbursements by payee

The campaign also compensated Perkins Coie for legal services between Oct. 16, 2008 and Dec. 31, 2008 ? to the tune of $378,375.52.

Robert Bauer of Perkins Coie ? top lawyer for Obama, Obama's presidential campaign, the Democratic National Committee and Obama's Organizing
for America ? is the same Washington, D.C., lawyer defending President Obama in lawsuits challenging his eligibility to be president."

Hey, if it will weaken our Nation, I'm sure the Dems are all for it!

[searingtruth]

Curious.

What debate could there have been?

The United States of America tortured and murdered prisoners held indefinitely in secret prisons, who had not even been charged with a crime, or availed of any independent counsel.

A clear and undeniable violation of our Constitution, rule of law, and everything America once stood for.
ST


"Torture is not confusing at all. The stench of the vomit and blood and urine and feces expelled by its victims, and their wrenching cries for mercy or death, are clear evidence that abomination is working its evil will.

No one can deny, or claim ignorance, of its stain.

And its stain upon America will never be erased.

There are some things that you can never take back."
SearingTruth

A Future of the Brave

[sillyrabbit9]

Obama Inner Circle Debated Memos' Release.....

than they all exhaled and said"ah yeaaahh!!!"

[amer_icon]

Cover-up!!! The pirate attacks appeared to have stopped!! Whatsup with that???

[pauldia-2009]

Thank G-d we had Cheney-Bush after 911. Cheney would never be requesting the public disclosure if our perfidious "president" didn't politically declassify certain memos and make us less safe. This is a fact. Now for a request. Obama has paid over $1,000,000.00 from campaign cash to the law firm of Perkins Cole to fight the release of a document he deems more secret than the CIA memos; his birth certificate!! WHY? Mr. Obama care to explain why campaign cash is being spent this way?

[oftencensord]

It is no surprise the State Governors & leaders are rethinking sovereignty and security within their own borders. If the Federal Government cannot / will not perform the two things it is constitutionally obligated to do 1. provide a stable currency and banking system, and 2. national defense, what are the local government's options? There is a very growing need for "localism" .. local rule and stability of your own community governments.

[ghwab1949]

To Preident Obama everything is a debating game. It makes no difference how much money, or how much in taxes, or whether safety or human lives are at stake. It is all an academic exercise to him and he is just playing a game.

[notblue]

skyk, are you so simple minded and blinded by hatred for fellow Americans that you truly believe the Dems were not part of the equation the last eight years? Your daily nonsensical one sided blather is tiresome and false. Get a friggin clue!

[credibility2]

What a sham way to do things! Worse than Bush 43!!