Enlarge imageBy Tabassum Zakaria
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Attorney General Eric Holder on Thursday vowed to move cautiously and avoid partisan politics in deciding whether any Bush-era officials should be prosecuted for justifying harsh interrogation techniques.
Holder spoke a day after The New York Times reported that an internal Justice Department review had determined that Bush administration officials committed serious lapses of judgement in authorising tough questioning procedures but should not be prosecuted.
Meanwhile, questions arose about how much House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi knew about the techniques.
A report to congressional leaders from CIA Director Leon Panetta disclosed that Pelosi, then the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, was briefed about the use of interrogation techniques in 2002.
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She has said she was never told about the use of waterboarding -- simulated drowning -- or other techniques, saying only that the Bush administration had told her about legal opinions justifying their use.
But the report said Pelosi was briefed on September 4, 2002, about enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs) on terrorism suspect Abu Zubaydah "and a description of the particular EITs that had been employed."
Pelosi stuck to her argument that she had not been told waterboarding was used, said Brendan Daly, her spokesman.
"As this document shows, the Speaker was briefed only once, in September 2002. The briefers described these techniques, said they were legal, but said that waterboarding had not yet been used," Daly said.
PROBES POSSIBLE
Human rights advocates have called for prosecuting those Bush officials who wrote legal analysis used to justify interrogating terrorism suspects with tactics such as waterboarding.
Amid a mounting outcry over interrogation methods that critics have called illegal torture, Holder told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing that he intended to proceed cautiously.
Holder said he had not yet read the draft report from a review by the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility conducted during the previous administration of lawyers who wrote the Bush-era interrogation legal opinions.
"I have not reviewed it. It is not in final form yet," Holder said. "It deals, I suspect, not only with the attorneys but the people that they interacted with, so I think we'll gain some insights by reviewing that report."
He said the review could lead to probes of other officials.
A Senate Intelligence Committee report last month said top Bush officials, like then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Vice President Dick Cheney, had approved the CIA's interrogation program, including waterboarding, in 2002.
Republican Senator Lamar Alexander said he supported Obama's view that it was best to look forward rather than launch potentially far-ranging investigations into past events.
"What about members of Congress who were informed of them or knew about them or approved them or encouraged them, wouldn't they also be appropriate parts of such an investigation?" Alexander said.
"Our desire is not to do anything that would be perceived as political, as partisan. We do want to look forward to the extent that we can do that," Holder said.
But he added, "to the extent that we see violations of those laws, we'll take the appropriate actions."
(Additional reporting by Thomas Ferraro and Steve Holland, Editing by Paul Simao)
