Obama: CIA's 'best days yet to come'

by Mark Silva

While banning the most controversial interrogation practices employed by the CIA in the past, President Barack Obama is calling on the agency to renew its mission under new marching orders.

Calling the CIA "an indispensable tool, the tip of the spear'' in America's national security, Obama personally addressed employees of the agency today standing before a marble wall with 89 stars marking, anonymously, agents who have died in the line of duty.

"I believe that the CIA's best days are yet to come,'' Obama told his audience. "We live in dangerous times. I am going to need you more than ever....We want to send a new message to the world... We're going to have to operate smarter and more effectively than ever.''

The Obama administration last week had released the earliest memoranda of the Bush Justice Department that provided the CIA with a legal authority for its harshest tactics in the interrogation of al Qaeda operatives captured in the Bush administration's 'war on terror.''

That included waterboarding, a simulated drowning which Obama's attorney general has deemed as "torture.'' It is now forbidden under orders that Obama signed during his first week in office requiring the CIA to follow the Army Field Manual in interrogations.

The CIA subjected al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah to waterboarding at least 83 times during August 2002, the Justice memos showed, and used it on Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, planner of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, 183 times during March 2003.

"I have put an end to the interrogation techniques described in those memos,'' Obama said today. "I believe that our nation is stronger and more secure when we deploy the full measure of both our power and the power of our values -- including the rule of law. "'

"In the long term, that's why we'll defeat our enemies,'' Obama said, "because we are on the better side of history.''

The president's CIA director, Leon Panetta, drove the same message home today: "We can fully protect our nation and our values at the same time,'' said Panetta, introducing the president to an audience at agency headquarters in Langley, Va.

"We must be careful not to spend so much time and energy in laying blame for the past that it interferes with our ability to focus on the fundamental mission that we have for today and tomorrow, that of defeating our enemy and keeping our nation safe.'' Panetta said. "We have an opportunity for the CIA to begin a new and great chapter in our service to the nation.''

The White House maintains it is putting the past behind in announcing that no CIA agents, who were operating under "good faith'' with the guidance of the Bush Justice Department, will be prosecuted. Obama's advisers have suggested that the highest-level officials who authorized the practices also will be immune.

Yet critics contend that Obama has jeopardized national security in disclosing the full extent of the tactics that were used in interrogations.

"At the tactical level, what we have described for our enemies in the midst of a war are the outer limits that any American would ever go to in terms of interrogating an Al Qaeda terrorist,'' Gen. Mike Hayden, the last director of the CIA under Bush, said in an interview on FOX News Sunday. "That's very valuable information.''

The White House maintains that much of what was disclosed already had been known and written about.

"People have expressed understandable anxiety and concern,'' Obama told his CIA audience. "I understand that it's hard when you are asked to protect the American people against people who have no scruples and would willingly and gladly kill innocents... al Qaeda is not constrained by a Constitution.

"I'm sure that sometimes it seems as if that means we're operating with one hand tied behind our back, or that those who would argue for a higher standard are naïve,'' he said. "I understand that. You know, I watch the cable shows once in a while.''

The White House maintains that it will not tolerate torture. At the same time, the White House says this to critics asking why no one will be held accountable for practices now banned:

Those who acted "in good faith.. should not be prosecuted,'' Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said today "The president also believes that rather than looking backward, and fighting this backward, it's better to move the country forward.''

The president's chief of staff says Obama personally crafted a statement that he issued last week with the release of the memos:

"We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history. But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.''

Obama had worked for four weeks on the issue, wrote the statement Wednesday night after making his decision and was editing it again Thursday morning before its release, according to Rahm Emanuel, chief of staff, rebutting the notion that too much was released.

"The notion that somehow this all of a sudden is a game changer doesn't take cognizance of the fact that it's already in the system and in the public domain,'' Emanuel said in an interview on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos. "It's not new. So the notion that that is something we've broken -- it's already been there. ''

While maintaining that CIA operatives who carried out the interrogations should not be prosecuted, Emanuel says the same holds for those who devised the policies authorized by the Justice Department.

"Those who devised policy, he believes.... should not be prosecuted either,'' said Emanuel, citing Obama's words: "'This is not a time for retribution'.... It's not a time to use our energy and our time in looking back in a sense of anger and retribution.''
mdsilva@tribune.com