Hoekstra criticizes Obama torture investigation

In the wake of a decision by Attorney General Eric Holder to allow an already-appointed special prosecutor to conduct a “preliminary review” of a handful of cases of abusive interrogations by CIA operatives during the Bush administration, Rep. Pete Hoekstra released a statement blasting the administration and accusing it of undermining the nation’s ability to fight terrorism.

U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, issued the following statement after the Department of Justice released portions of a CIA IG report on terrorist interrogation and Attorney General Eric Holder announced he was naming a prosecutor to investigate CIA officers engaged in counterterrorism:

“At the same time the situation in Afghanistan is getting decidedly worse and the Taliban is advancing, the Obama Justice Department is launching an investigation that risks disrupting CIA counterterrorism initiatives. This is the last thing that should happen when the president is sending more troops into harm’s way, and the nation’s top military officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, said over the weekend that al-Qaeda still remains a threat to America and our interests abroad.

“Attorney General Holder should know that as he increases the focus on America’s past counterterrorism efforts, he is distracting from the CIA’s current counterterrorism efforts. Having recently been forced to drop cases due to prosecutorial misconduct at DOJ, the attorney general argued that these were rare instances and not part of a broader problem. The same can be said of the CIA, where the agency initiated the investigation, reported cases of misconduct and disciplined the officers involved.

Hoekstra provides no evidence that investigating a handful of incidents where CIA operatives may have violated the law would do anything to damage our counterterrorism efforts, but the mere assertion that it would is a very strong accusation. The CIA is a very large agency, of course, and the actions of a handful of interrogators in a small number of cases can certainly be investigated without preventing the agency from carrying out its duties. Then he makes this very odd statement:

Disgruntled lawyers at DOJ, having lost the debate that America’s counterterrorism efforts should be focused on prevention not prosecution, need to put an end to this bureaucratic turf battle.

He appears to think that the DOJ lost a debate that does not seem to have ever taken place. Prevention and prosecution are both necessary tools in the counterterrorism toolbox. This is not an either/or situation; any intelligent response to terrorism will require both prevention and prosecution.

Hoekstra also fails to recognize that if any American official, including a CIA operative, did engage in torture for any reason, the UN Convention on Torture obligates the United States to investigate and prosecute them for doing so. When he announced the signing of this convention, which he had fought staunchly for around the world, Ronald Reagan made this obligation clear:

The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called ‘universal jurisdiction.’ Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution.”

Article 2 of that convention requires each country to take all necessary steps to prevent and prosecute any and all instances of torture. It also makes clear that “No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture” and provides that “An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.”