White House: FBI-based interrogations

by Josh Meyer

President Obama has approved the creation of a new multi-agency interrogation unit for suspected terrorists that will be based at the FBI but overseen by policy-makers at the White House and its National Security Council, senior administration officials said today.

The new unit, called the HIG, or High-value detainee Interrogation Group, was seen as one of the administration's most forceful efforts to date to distance itself from the Bush administration and the controversially coercive interrogation methods used by its CIA with approval by political appointees at the Bush Justice Department.

The CIA still will play a role in the interrogation and transfer of future high-value terrorist suspects, including al Qaeda leaders and their financiers and facilitators, according to the administration officials, who briefed reporters on the new plan but refused to discuss its details by name.

But the new unit, in addition to being housed at FBI headquarters in Washington, will be led by an as-yet-unnamed FBI official and comprise interrogators, analysts and linguists from numerous civilian and military agencies, the officials said. Its deputy director will come from a U.S. intelligence agency, and the unit overall will report to the White House.

In the Bush administration, the CIA had the lead and usually exclusive role in interrogations of suspected al Qaeda operatives, with the U.S. military conducting the questioning of many militants caught in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Deputy White House Press Secretary Bill Burton also discussed the new unit, telling reporters covering the vacationing Obama on Martha's Vineyard, Mass., that it will include "all these different elements under one group.''

Att'y' Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. and the two senior administration officials said the recommendations were made after extensively consulting with military, intelligence and law enforcement agencies, including some of the nation's most experienced and skilled interrogators that they employ.

``The task force concluded that the Army Field Manual provides appropriate guidance on interrogation for military interrogators and that no additional or different guidance was necessary for other agencies,'' Holder said.

The HIG will deploy mobile teams of experienced interrogators, analysts, subject matter experts and linguists to conduct interrogations of high-value terrorists if the United States obtains the ability to interrogate them. Its primary goal, Holder said, ``would be gathering intelligence to prevent terrorist attacks and otherwise to protect national security.''

But Holder also said that advance planning and interagency coordination under the new HIG ``would also allow the United States, where appropriate, to preserve the option of gathering information to be used in potential criminal investigations and prosecutions.''

"The new policies proposed by the task force will allow us to draw the best personnel from across the government to conduct interrogations that will yield valuable intelligence and strengthen our national security," Holder said. "There is no tension between strengthening our national security and meeting our commitment to the rule of law, and these new policies will accomplish both."

On a related matter, Burton said that a recommendation now before Holder to appoint a criminal prosecutor to investigate possible CIA prisoner abuse cases is a decision solely for the attorney general to make without intervention from the president.

The Tribune Washington Bureau reported earlier this month that Holder was poised to appoint such a prosecutor, most likely after the public release of the CIA inspector general's lengthy and highly critical 2004 report on interrogation. A federal judge has ordered that report to be released today in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, and Obama administration officials are said to be hours away from making it public.

The recommendation for the HIG unit came from a presidentially appointed task force on interrogation and renditions, the practice of transferring suspected terrorists from one country to another. Under the Bush administration, that practice generated a lot of controversy as well, with critics contending that the CIA sent some detainees to countries where there were tortured into providing coerced--and unreliable--information about co-conspirators and possible terrorist attacks.

The senior administration officials said that the task force recommended that renditions continue, but that the State Department and other elements of the U.S. government will take stronger steps to ensure that the prionsers are not tortured.

And, within the U.S. government, the new HIG and other interrogators will continue to rely on the guidelines set forth in a recently revised Army Field Manual, which does not allow many of the coercive techniques approved and used under the Bush administration. One of those was water-boarding, which makes those being interrogated feel as if they are drowning.

The Obama administration already has banned water-boarding and some other brutal interrogation techniques, so the new directive to adhere only to procedures in the Army Field Manual means that most, if not all, controversial and potentially coercive tactics already have been banned.

All of the new policies, approved in recent weeks by Obama, are part of the administration's ongoing efforts to inject more transparency and accountability into the U.S. counter-terrorism campaign, the senior officials said.

Earlier today, CIA Director Leon Panetta prepared the agency's employees for the release of the report, which is said to be highly critical of some CIA interrogation policies and practices, especially some interrogators who went beyond those techniques approved by the Bush Justice Department.

In an e-mail message, Panetta told agency employees that the report was ``in many ways an old story'' and that the CIA has put in place many reforms since it was conducted. CIA officials have fought the release of the inspector general's report since 2004, saying it contains classified CIA sources and methods.

Even though the controversial CIA interrogation program no longer exists, Panetta said he also planned to ``stand up for those officers who did what their country asked and who followed the legal guidance they were given. That is the president's position, too.''

An internal report by the Justice Department's ethics office reportedly also has recommended that some cases be investigated for criminal prosecution, including some that had previously been reviewed by Justice Department prosecutors, who determined that they could not make criminal cases and declined to file charges.

Panetta alluded to that in his email, saying, ``The CIA has a strong record in terms of following legal guidance and informing the Department of Justice of potentially illegal conduct.''