• Agents may have gone too far during interrogations
• Prosecutor already looking into why videos destroyed
The US attorney general, Eric Holder, is set to name a special investigator into possible crimes by CIA officers after publication yesterday of an internal report on interrogation techniques described as "inhumane".
Holder is due to appoint John Durham, a career prosecutor in the justice department, as head of the inquiry. Durham is already investigating how CIA video tapes of the interrogations came to be destroyed.
Holder's decision to expand the extent of the inquiry contrasts with the position in Britain, where the government has opposed any similar investigation into UK involvement.
Barack Obama's administration has been torn over whether to rake back through what Democrats see as some of the blackest days in US history. But Holder, according to US media reports, was sickened by what he read in the report published yesterday. It set out a series of incidents in which agents apparently went too far in interrogating al-Qaida suspects.
The 2004 internal CIA report, by the agency's then inspector-general, John Helgerson, investigated allegations of abuse during interrogation. Helgerson, while noting the agency said it had gained some crucial intelligence about al-Qaida plots, concluded that its officers had used "unauthorised, improvised, inhumane and undocumented detention and interrogation techniques".
The CIA resisted a legal action by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to publish the report under the Freedom of Information Act. A copy was published last year under the Bush administration, but almost the entire contents were blacked out. President Obama had promised that as much as possible would be published. In spite of that, 35 of the 109 pages were almost entirely blacked out.
The ACLU gave a tentative welcome to the decision to appoint a special investigator. Anthony Romero, its executive director, said: "While this is a welcome first step, we are disappointed that attorney general Holder still appears unwilling to conduct a full investigation." He added: "The CIA's own inspector-general documented in disturbing detail the level of the torture committed and the extent to which laws were broken."
Holder's decision will renew the fierce debate with former members of the Bush administration, led by the former vice-president Dick Cheney, who argue that the CIA officers gained information that prevented fresh attacks by al-Qaida.
Leon Panetta, the CIA director appointed by Obama, exposed the extent of the division inside the Obama administration when he echoed many of Cheney's arguments in defence of the agents.
Panetta said: "The CIA obtained intelligence from high-value detainees when inside information on al-Qaida was in short supply." He qualified this, by adding: "Whether this was the only way to obtain that information will remain a legitimate area of dispute, with Americans holding a range of views on the methods used."
In a note sent to the CIA workforce yesterday ahead of the report's release, Panetta echoed another argument from the Bush officials, that the justice department had looked at Helgerson's report in 2005 and decided against prosecution, except in the case of one contractor.
He added: "My primary interest – when it comes to a programme that no longer exists – is to stand up for those officers who did what their country asked and who followed the legal guidance they were given. That is the president's position."
Obama has adopted a neutral position in the face of the differing views within his administration. His press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said: "The president has said repeatedly that he wants to look forward, not back, and the president agrees with the attorney general that those who acted in good faith and within the scope of legal guidance should not be prosecuted. Ultimately, determinations about whether someone broke the law are made independently by the attorney general."
The White House tried to take some of the sting out of the release of the report by announcing that there will be a special group set up which is specifically trained in interrogations, to be housed in the FBI headquarters rather than at the CIA.
Durham's investigation could theoretically lead to criminal prosecution of CIA officers. His remit is to decide whether there is enough evidence. In reality such prosecutions are difficult to achieve, partly through lack of evidence and partly because of the difficulty in establishing whether the agents involved believed they were acting within guidelines laid down by the Bush administration.
Joanne Mariner, a spokeswoman for Human Rights Watch, said: "The CIA inspector-general's report provides compelling official confirmation that the CIA committed serious crimes.
She added: "It's heartening that the attorney general has opened a preliminary investigation of these crimes, but it's crucial that its scope include senior officials who authorised torture.
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