A tortured policy

Friday, May 1, 2009 | 2:07 a.m.

In Congress there has been a roaring debate recently over the so-called torture memos from the Justice Department, outlining the brutal tactics used by CIA interrogators after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The Bush administration pushed those policies into place and has since defended them — most recently by former Vice President Dick Cheney — as vital and lifesaving. The consensus, however, is that those techniques are torture, and President Barack Obama ordered the CIA to stop using them.

There have been calls in Congress to prosecute those who employed and authorized those tactics. Obama has said CIA agents who used the torture techniques should not be prosecuted. He has, however, stopped short of coming out against prosecuting the attorneys and officials who authorized the tactics.

Federal appeals Judge Jay Bybee, who is based in Las Vegas, signed the legal opinion authorizing torture techniques, and some members of Congress have called for his resignation or impeachment. Bybee sent a statement this week to The New York Times defending the opinion, which has been roundly criticized by scholars and law professors, as “a good-faith analysis of the law.”

Congress has been divided, mostly along partisan lines, about what to do. Some people, particularly Republicans, have called for letting the matter drop. They say the “enhanced interrogation techniques” yielded great results and prevented attacks. Their support comes from CIA memos that claim planned terrorist attacks, including one on Los Angeles, were stopped after interrogators learned of the plans by using the techniques. In other words, the ends justified the means.

Other people, particularly Democrats, argue there is little — if any — evidence that waterboarding and other torture techniques provided results. They point to interviews with former interrogators, who cast doubt on their effectiveness. The CIA never conducted any serious study of the tactics’ alleged success, even after the agency’s inspector general reported in 2004 that there was no evidence to prove the brutal techniques stopped any “specific credible threats.”

There is too much at stake — particularly the nation’s reputation and its valued record on human rights — to let this issue be caught in partisan wrangling.

Congress should convene a bipartisan, independent commission — with full subpoena power — to investigate the Bush administration’s torture policy. Before moving ahead, the nation deserves a full accounting of the facts.