IT WASN'T A REPUBLICAN THAT NUKED HIROSHIMA:

Interrogating the CIA (REUEL MARC GERECHT, 8/30/09, WSJ)

A clever, streetwise classmate of mine at the Central Intelligence Agency's junior officer training program—a former Delta Force officer—quickly and rudely discovered that counterterrorism in the much-vaunted Reagan years wasn't a serious endeavor at Langley. He had original and provocative ideas on using physical force to scare the bejesus out of terrorist suspects who had American blood on their hands. Although the CIA was then filling up with operatives pretending to be engaged against a growing terrorist menace, Langley's counterterrorist data bank and real operational planning were near zero. My friend's ideas were too unsettling. He resigned. By the time I resigned in 1994, CIA counterterrorism had become an inflexible, lumbering creature, incapable of countering the wicked anti-American forces gaining strength in the Middle East.

Fast forward to eight years after 9/11: Has Attorney General Eric Holder damaged the CIA's improved counterterrorist capacity by his decision to employ a special prosecutor to investigate whether crimes were committed by the agency's interrogators? From the moment Barack Obama won the presidency, Langley's use of "enhanced interrogation" was obviously over. The appointment of a prosecutor guarantees that unless the United States is again devastated by a terrorist attack—on a scale greater than 9/11—CIA operatives will certainly decline any future order by a Republican president to interrogate roughly a jihadist. Langley's junior officers may still receive survival and escape training, which is the baptismal font for the agency's enhanced interrogation techniques. But members of al Qaeda will not similarly get to enjoy the experience.

Constrained by new rules and hostile lawyers, can the CIA in the future successfully interrogate uncooperative jihadists, like self-described 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who remained as close-mouthed as a clam when questioned without physical coercion?

Does anyone really think that any Democratic president would eschew torture despite a subsequent attack?

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 30, 2009 7:45 AM