Democrats want outside inquiry of interrogations

A leading Democratic senator said Sunday that independent investigators should determine whether Bush administration officials ought to face charges over the harsh interrogation techniques used against suspected terrorists.

The White House had hoped to let the attorney general make that call.

Other liberal Democratic lawmakers appearing on the Sunday news shows joined Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) in pressuring the Obama administration to pursue investigations into the interrogation policies. But they stopped short of demanding charges against the Bush-era lawyers and officials who devised the policies that critics have denounced as torture.

Conservative Republican senators characterized the Democratic effort as counterproductive, politically motivated and damaging to national security.

Obama has said he would not seek to punish CIA officers and others who carried out interrogations resulting from high-level legal advice and policy decisions within the Bush administration. Obama said Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. would decide whether prosecutions were warranted against those who developed the policies.

Levin said he had recommended that the Justice Department select up to three people outside the department, such as retired federal judges, to recommend any charges or other actions against lawyers and others who developed the policies.

“That decision should not be made by politicians, by partisans, by Democrats or Republicans. It is made traditionally by a Department of Justice who is supposed to make these decisions independently,” Levin said.

Last week, the Senate Armed Services Committee, which Levin heads, issued a report linking the CIA’s interrogation program to the military’s aggressive tactics against detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Afghanistan.

The report led Levin and others to dismiss the Bush administration’s contention that the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, blamed for inflaming the Iraq insurgency, had been the act of a few misguided soldiers.

Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.) contended that Obama’s release of the memos would have the same effect of inciting people against Americans as the “rogue criminal acts” of troops at Abu Ghraib.

“I don’t think there’s any question it would endanger all of us, because I think it will enhance recruitment for all kinds of terrorists,” Bond said.

Bond also accused Obama of having “demoralized” the CIA and, by revealing the techniques in such detail, had “absolutely destroyed our ability to get further information from terrorists.”

Obama’s Republican rival in last year’s election condemned the use of torture as a violation of the Geneva Convention and said such tactics endangered U.S. troops when they are held prisoner. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) also said the nation was aware of what took place and was ready to move on.

“Are you going to prosecute people for giving bad legal advice? Are you going to keep on down this road in order, frankly, to -- maybe there’s an element of settling old political scores here.” McCain said. “We need to put this behind us. We need to move forward.”

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he favored consolidating the committee investigations into a bipartisan commission similar to the one that investigated the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. It’s important, Leahy said, that the nation understand how the decisions were reached and by whom.

“I know some people say, ‘Let’s turn the page,’ ” Leahy said. “Frankly, I’d like to read the page before we turn it.”

Levin and Bond appeared on “Fox News Sunday,” while McCain and Leahy were interviewed on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”