David Kurtz May 22, 2008, 10:10 AM

The Washington Post digs deeper into that Justice Department Inspector General’s report on the FBI role in detainee interrogations, specifically the contentious high-level Administration disputes over torture:

Two major policy splits are highlighted in the report’s account of the long to-and-fro over the tactics. One reflected a clash of cultures between the experienced interrogators at the FBI who were looking to prosecute terrorism crimes, and military and CIA officials who were seeking rapid information about al-Qaeda and were willing to push legal boundaries to do it. The report shows that FBI agents appeared more concerned about the long view, while others wanted detainees to break immediately in the panicked days after Sept. 11, 2001.

The IG report reveals that the FBI was so concerned about the techniques being used that agents began collecting allegations of abuse and placing them in a “war crimes file.” Although, as we’ve previously noted, the FBI ultimately took a hands-off approach to torture, and the file was soon closed with no action taken.

The usual characters — Addington, Yoo, Ashcroft — played a role, but the report reveals some new players, mid-level officials who opposed the torture regimen:

Bruce C. Swartz, a criminal division deputy in charge of international issues, repeatedly questioned the effectiveness of harsh interrogation tactics at White House meetings of a special group formed to decide detainee matters, with representatives present from the Pentagon, the State Department and the CIA. …

Besides Swartz, the others depicted as raising sustained objections are then-FBI assistant general counsel Marion “Spike” Bowman, who documented his concerns in written reports, and Pasquale D’Amuro, then the bureau’s assistant director for counterterrorism. Michael Chertoff, who was then assistant attorney general in charge of the criminal division, raised concerns in November 2002 about the effectiveness of the military’s methods, although he said later he did not recall hearing assertions that they were illegal.

But with the pressure for harsh interrogation tactics coming from the very highest levels of government, the objections of mid-level officials were barely speed bumps on the road to torture as official U.S. policy.

Torture