President Obama framed the release of a Senate report Tuesday detailing extreme interrogation techniques used by the Central Intelligence Agency as the fulfillment of a promise made six years ago to atone for how the U.S. government handled terror suspects.
For Obama, however, the issue has never been that simple.
A president who immediately signed an executive order banning torture soon after entering the Oval Office later became a commander in chief who put a public accounting of CIA interrogation practices on the back burner.
As the administration trumpeted a self-professed commitment to transparency, Democratic aides on Capitol Hill grumbled that Obama’s White House needlessly put up barriers to exposing how the CIA operated in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Senior administration officials made clear Tuesday that they would not pick sides in the debate between the CIA and Senate Democrats over whether extreme interrogation techniques produced meaningful intelligence.
And the White House punted questions over the legality of the tactics in question to the Justice Department, aggravating critics who say Obama never put the full force of his office behind punishing actions defined by international law as torture.
“Will there be any remedy at all for those who suffered abuse at the hands of the U.S. government?” wondered Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy. “Will they be entitled to some form of compensation? An apology? Anything?”
As much of Washington was consumed Tuesday by the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s findings, Obama was in Tennessee, promoting his executive actions on immigration reform.
The White House was more concerned with moving past the explosive debate about intelligence practices than re-litigating a time period Obama simply labeled “those difficult years.”
“The president has said that we committed torture,” explained a senior administration official. “He’s been clear on that point for many years. That’s been his position.”
Behind closed doors, however, the White House repeatedly expressed reservations about the “torture” report, with some aides questioning whether it would overshadow Obama’s agenda and put U.S. installations overseas at risk.
Such positioning created long-lasting tensions with Democrats on Capitol Hill.
“There should be no victory lap here,” said one Democratic Senate aide, closely involved in the fight with the White House over the report. “The president said one thing, but it was rarely ever backed up by their actions.”
Whether on drones, National Security Agency surveillance techniques or the newly-released report, the president has repeatedly been forced to reconcile his progressive principles with the demands of his intelligence community.
Obama, who on the campaign trail in 2008 frequently railed against what he saw as abuses under George W. Bush’s watch, softened his tone just months into his first term.
“I respect the strong views and emotions that these issues evoke,” he said in April 2009. “We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history. But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.”
Obama’s reluctance to delve into the issue more than five years later has put him in hot water with civil libertarians.
“The Bush administration’s torture program and the Obama administration’s long battle to keep the truth from coming out are among the most shameful chapters in our nation’s history,” said Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice.
Yet, Obama knew the Senate report was less likely to be released after Republicans take over the upper chamber in 2015, and the lame-duck session was viewed as perhaps the most politically convenient time to do so.
But some analysts said Obama put political expediency ahead of sound policy.
“CIA practices have long since changed, with enhanced methods banned by both internal review and executive order,” wrote Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution.
“Their integrity is being called into question, implicitly if not explicitly,” he added of the intelligence community. “We have so much more to do, and so many more forward-looking issues to address, as a nation. It is time to move on.”
