Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has named a veteran federal prosecutor, John Durham, to examine nearly a dozen abuse cases in which detainees were held by the Central Intelligence Agency. The Justice Department’s ethics office, in a report released on Monday, recommended reopening the cases, reversing the Bush administration and potentially exposing C.I.A. workers to prosecution for their treatment of detainees.
President Obama, who has often said that he wants to look forward, not backward, said in April that C.I.A. officers who were acting on the Justice Department’s legal advice approving the use of certain interrogation techniques, would not be prosecuted. But he left open the possibility that anyone who acted without legal authorization could face criminal penalties.
We asked some legal and national security experts what the scope of such an inquiry should be and whether C.I.A. employees and contractors should be subject to potential prosecution.
* David Cole, Georgetown University Law Center
* Sarah E. Mendelson, Center for Strategic and International Studies
* Vicki Divoll, former C.I.A. assistant general counsel
* Diane Marie Amann, law professor at University of California, Davis
* Benjamin Wittes, Brookings Institution
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