In the name of justice

These are troubled times for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), by all accounts, the most  powerful spy organisation in the world, in terms of both the resources at its disposal and the sheer ruthlessness it has displayed on crucial issues.

Allegations had been flying around for quite some time that its operatives had been freely using barbaric methods of interrogation to break down suspects of the al Qaeda and similar outfits, and that these had the sanction of the Bush administration.

Substantial credence has now been lent to the allegations by the Obama government’s recent decision to go ahead with a full-fledged inquiry into the CIA’s alleged misdeeds by an ace prosecutor, John H Durham of Connecticut.

Durham’s probe will draw heavily from the findings of CIA’s Inspector-General John L Helgerson who conducted an internal investigation in 2004, but whose findings were never made public. Only a few weeks ago, excerpts from the Helgerson report were released, thanks to a court order.

These were shocking enough to set off an acerbic national debate on how to rein in the spy agency that had brought a lot of odium to the US. Set up in 1947 after the promulgation that year of the National Security Act, the CIA has been a great prop to American interests the worldover.

Perhaps no other US president misused the CIA as much as George Bush did. It is for Barack Obama now to punish the wrongdoers and set up a system that will offer some hopes that the CIA will behave itself in future.

This is no easy task however, because of the sensitivities involved. Any soft-pedalling of CIA misconduct will drill a further hole into Obama’s credibility as a crusader for human rights.

At the same time, any overzealousness in tracking down rogues in the organisation will alienate him from a vocal section in the country which still strongly believes that without the highhandedness that the CIA stands accused of, the war against terrorism will never be won.

The embarrassment to the White House is all the greater because several documents in the hands of the Obama administration establish that the harsh treatment meted out to many prisoners during CIA interrogations was not the aberration of a few lowly placed operatives, but it was systematically directed from the higher echelons of Washington, namely, the CIA headquarters and the Department of Justice, then headed by attorney general Gonzales.

This means that the full-fledged investigation could lead to the criminal prosecution of top CIA officials, a development that might seriously endanger agency morale. The present attorney general Eric H Holder seems determined to go to the bottom of the murky happenings.

His hands are strengthened by the findings of the 2004 internal inquiry which established that the CIA had been guilty of several harsh methods of interrogation, which included the now infamous ‘waterboarding’, a technique in which the subject is exposed repeatedly to a near-drowning sensation. Reports indicate that this method almost instantaneously broke any prisoner resistance to communicate what he knew.

Threat of sexual assault of a near relation in the prisoner’s own presence was another obnoxious tool that had been allegedly used. Neither mechanics can bring credit to any intelligence agency which seeks to heavily influence government policy.

It is possible that the attorney-general may ultimately be able to identify CIA personnel guilty of specific crimes against suspects in custody and decide to prosecute them. This is a serious prospect, one that could affect the future functioning of the CIA.

The dilemma that the CIA now faces has lessons for its counterparts elsewhere in the world. Neither of our outfits, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) of the Union home ministry and the Research & Analysis Wing (RAW) of the cabinet secretariat, can ignore what is now happening in the US.

Fortunately, till now, except on odd occasions, like the IB’s enquiry against some ISRO officials more than two decades ago, they enjoy a reputation for respecting the fundamental rights of those questioned by them.

What has helped them mainly is the fact that neither enjoys the legal authority to take suspects into custody. Arrests, whenever required for a case, are made by the local police, and the IB/RAW merely assist in interrogation.

Retaining this arrangement is a good way of protecting their image and preventing them from committing excesses. This does not however meet the question as to whether soft methods are good enough to break the back of the deadly terrorist movements that are out to destroy the fabric of our nation. This will never be convincingly answered.

Meanwhile, increased use of technology in investigation and enhancing interrogation skills through state-of-the-art training of intelligence personnel seem to be the only avenues available to a government. It is possible that the findings of John Durham, the US prosecutor, will throw up a few new ideas on the subject.