By Margaret Talev and Marisa Taylor
McClatchy Newspapers
(MCT)
WASHINGTON _ President Obama said Thursday that the United States will not prosecute CIA officials who participated in controversial terrorism interrogation techniques _ including waterboarding and slapping and sleep deprivation _ that were secretly authorized under President Bush and have since been rescinded.
"This is a time for reflection, not retribution," Obama said in a written statement issued as the Justice Department prepared to turn over by a court deadline Bush-era memos that authorized various legally questionable techniques.
"In releasing these memos, it is our intention to assure those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice that they will not be subject to prosecution," the president said.
The memos were issued between 2002 and 2005 by the Bush Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. The Obama administration was being compelled to release them to the American Civil Liberties Union under a federal court-imposed deadline in an open records lawsuit being brought by the group.
CIA director Leon Panetta told employees in a memo Thursday that despite Obama's assurances, "This is not the end of the road on these issues" to expect more pressure from the Congress, the public and the courts to release more information.
At the same time, he said, it was important to understand the "context" of the memos, coming soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
He said: "The fact remains that CIA's detention and interrogation effort was authorized and approved by our government. For that reason, as I have continued to make clear, I will strongly oppose any effort to investigate or punish those who followed the guidance of the Department of Justice."
Panetta also said the CIA would provide legal representation to any staff investigated for their actions.
The memos are being released late Thursday afternoon.
The administration was redacting at least some information, at the request of intelligence officials.
In his statement, the president said of intelligence operatives, "we must protect their identities as vigilantly as they protect our security, and we must provide them with the confidence that they can do their jobs."
Obama also said: "The exceptional circumstances surrounding these memos should not be viewed as an erosion of the strong legal basis for maintaining the classified nature of secret activities."
The four memos are said to detail the type of "enhanced" interrogation techniques that were condoned by the Justice Department for use by the CIA.
For years, the Bush administration has refused to release memos that provided the legal underpinning for harsh interrogations, eavesdropping and secret prisons, citing national security, attorney-client privilege and the need to protect the government's deliberative process.
Shortly after Obama took office, Attorney General Eric Holder pledged to release as many of the still-secret Office of Legal Counsel memos and opinions as possible while protecting national security information.
Critics of the prior administration see the release of the documents as necessary to determine whether former administration officials should be held accountable for legal opinions that justified various antiterrorism measures, including the use of waterboarding, an interrogation technique that simulates drowning.
Two previous Justice Department memos in 2002 and 2003 had approved the use of waterboarding and other harsh methods so long as they did not cause pain similar in intensity to that caused by death or organ failure.
But those memos were widely condemned and later withdrawn because of questions about whether they were encouraging torture. The disclosure of them also forced President Bush to declare, "We do not torture," a phrase he would come to repeat often when defending the administration's anti-terrorism policies.
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