Ex-CIA officer Robert Baer: ‘Obama should not stop there’

Former CIA officer Robert Baer approves of President Obama’s release of the CIA memos justifying harsh interrogation methods approved by the Bush administration, noting that there is no way that the description of practices that are already well-known can possibly compromise national security.

However, Baer — who has also argued recently that the CIA needs to get out of the coercion business and back to “classical espionage” — believes that “Obama should not stop there” and that a blue-ribbon presidential commission is needed to further investigate the entire issue of abusive interrogations.

In an opinion piece for Time magazine, Baer points out that the memos rely on the “ticking time-bomb” scenario to claim that torture saves lives, but that they do not provide any convincing evidence to back up that claim. For example, 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed told interrogators about plans for a “Second Wave” of attacks — but since those attacks never came, “without more documents declassified, it can be assumed that KSM made it up to stop the waterboarding.”

Baer is also skeptical of the “chatter” about another 9/11 that was picked up in 2002 and used to justify abusive interrogations. “Someone objective needs to take a close look at the exact wording of the ‘chatter’, and tell the President whether there really was an imminent threat,” he writes. “We cannot take anyone’s word for it that the interrogations saved lives; someone objective needs to take a good hard look at the facts.”

“In the short run, CIA morale will be hurt by yet another investigation,” Baer acknowledges. “But at the same time it will force the agency to take a much needed honest look at its reporting on al-Qaeda. One memo notes that in 2004 the CIA obtained half of its reporting on this organization from detainees, many of whom ‘confessed’ under abusive interrogation. A complete investigation into the quality of that information, I suspect, will prove we are going through this national trauma and international humiliation for absolutely nothing.”

Read on.