The intelligence we will not get under Obama

Washington Times:

National Intelligence Director Michael McConnell warned Friday that interrogation techniques listed as permitted in the U.S. Army Field Manual are not sufficient to protect the security of the United States.

The retired admiral, who is leaving his post with the change in administrations but will remain an adviser to the new president, was reacting to comments by incoming officials that the Obama administation will bar harsh interrogation measures, such as waterboarding.

...

Mr. McConnell defended the practices of the Bush administration. He and others have acknowledged that the administration harshly interrogated several dozen suspects and waterboarded three individuals.

"Does the [intelligence] community need interrogation techniques beyond what's in the Army Field Manual? In my opinion we do," he told a small group of reporters at a farewell news conference Friday.

"The Army Field Manual has 19 techniques," he said, "As long as it is determined to be legal by an appropriate legal authority, my recommendation to the administration would be preserve the ability to use lawfully approved techniques if you are in a situation where you need to use those techniques."

According to the manual, interrogators are encouraged to develop a rapport with a prisoner. The manual allows the interrogator to exploit the fears of a prisoner, but stop short of threatening him or her. Other acceptable techniques include taking advantage of a prisoner's strong feelings about an issue, showing false solidarity or attacking a prisoner's pride.

A Republican aide on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said an Obama White House executive order addressing CIA interrogation issues "would not surprise us," but added that he had not heard of any specific proposal. He spoke on the condition that he not be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Democrats have proposed limiting CIA interrogation techniques to the Army Field Manual since 2007. Indeed, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat, the incoming chairman of the intelligence committee, sponsored amendments in the last Congress to restrict the CIA to the manual's techniques.

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The NY Times Scott Shane sees other problems with the Obama/Holder approach.

Just 14 months ago, at his confirmation hearing, Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey frustrated and angered some senators by refusing to state that waterboarding, the near-drowning technique used on three prisoners by the Central Intelligence Agency, is in fact torture.

In the view of many historians and legal authorities, Mr. Holder was merely admitting the obvious. He was agreeing with the clear position of his boss-to-be, President-elect Barack Obama, and he was giving an answer that almost certainly was necessary to win confirmation.

Yet his statement, amounting to an admission that the United States may have committed war crimes, opens the door to an unpredictable train of legal and political consequences. It could potentially require a full-scale legal investigation, complicate prosecutions of individuals suspected of committing terrorism and mire the new administration in just the kind of backward look that Mr. Obama has said he would like to avoid.

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It is not an intelligent intelligence gathering policy. We use most of the things the administration wants to ban in the training of our own agents and some of our troops. We don't do it to torture them, but to prepare them for what the enemy may throw at them.

This is the first of many screw ups that liberalism in the new administration will cause. It may result in the freeing of the guilty enemy to go out and plot more mass murder of our citizens and it will no doubt mean that we will not get the evidence needed to stop future plots.

These decisions will very likely get innocent Americans killed so arrogant liberals can feel smug and holier than thou. It will also prolong the war and make it more costly for both sides.

Every administration has its screw ups, but this one is so obvious. It is evidence that liberals are not nearly as smart as they pretend to be.

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