High-risk, no-reward war on the CIA

Published August 26, 2009 4:00am ET



Smoke in the face. The sound of a drill. The threat to kill a terrorist’s family. A new inspector general’s report says that these techniques, plus waterboarding, were used – not widely, but sparingly – in CIA interrogations of terrorists such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the “mastermind of 9/11.” Mohammed broke under the pressure and disclosed important details about how the attack against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon was planned and executed. Now Attorney General Eric Holder is going to break the people who broke Mohammed. And by appointing a special prosecutor to do it, he is also trying to wash his hands of the investigation’s findings.

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