CIA officials tell the Washington Post that the administration is making us less safe:
The Obama administration's decisions to close the U.S. military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, make public Justice Department memos sanctioning harsh interrogation, and ban techniques authorized by the Bush administration are affecting the agency's operations. Agency officials said they will carry out any future debriefings or interrogations under provisions of the 2006 version of the Army Field Manual.... For example, the "attention grasp," described as "grasping the individual with both hands, one hand on either side of the collar," is one of the 13 techniques employed in the past by the CIA and is listed in the Justice Department's May 10, 2005, memo. It is barred under the Field Manual. Unlike harsher techniques on the list, such as nudity, dietary control, sleep deprivation and waterboarding, CIA officials say they want the authority to use the attention grasp without going back to Washington for approval.... Another intelligence official, who also asked not to be identified, said waterboarding and other harsh techniques "were meant to get hardened terrorists to a point where they were willing to answer questions." That capability, the official said, "is now gone."
Forget the ticking time-bomb scenario, the Obama administration's new rules wouldn't even allow the CIA to grab Osama bin Laden by the shirt collar if they caught him. By this standard Bobby Knight would be a war criminal. The president may be " absolutely convinced" that he was right to end the use of harsh interrogation techniques, but those on the left who insist that coercion is ineffective and counterproductive might be confused by the CIA's frustration. Why would the CIA even want to use techniques that, according to so many on the left, produce only false confessions at best? Just as alarming is the effect this witch-hunt is having on the already risk-averse culture inside the CIA. According to the Post, "the agency's defensiveness in part reflects a conviction that it is being forced to take the blame for actions approved by elected officials that have since fallen into disfavor." If Obama one day is confronted by a situation that requires more than a hard look from a Justice Department lawyer, will a CIA agent follow a lawful order to aggressively interrogate an al Qaeda prisoner? And for those still clinging to the hope that Nancy Pelosi and the administration are outmaneuvering their critics -- that "it's all strategic," as Michael Steele would say -- perhaps the timing of this story will prompt a rethink. If not, there should be plenty more leaks from the CIA over the next few weeks to help bring them around.