Panetta will test CIA tactics

WASHINGTON - President Obama's nominee to head the CIA said yesterday that he intended to test the assertions by current agency officials that coercive interrogation methods were effective in getting terrorism suspects to talk.

Leon E. Panetta's comments were the latest indication that the Obama administration may restore some of the CIA's authority to use interrogation techniques that go beyond those allowed for the U.S. military. But Panetta stressed that he also would examine the downside of using coercive methods and that the agency would operate within the law.

The question of whether coercive methods work has become a heated issue within the intelligence community. Obama last month signed executive orders to abolish harsh interrogation methods and close the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Critics contend that prisoners under duress yield bad intelligence. But departing CIA Director Michael V. Hayden has said publicly that the agency's "enhanced" interrogation techniques were highly effective against al-Qaea prisoners and that the agency should be allowed to continue using those methods, as long as they comply with the law.

As part of a White House task force on interrogation policy, Panetta said he would examine the agency's tactics and results in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, seeking to determine "how effective they were or weren't and whether any appropriate revisions need to be made."

Panetta's comments came during the second day of his confirmation hearing before the Senate intelligence committee. Panetta also testified that he believed the Bush administration's counterterrorism methods had undermined the nation's security.

"I think sometimes they believed that the ends justified the means," Panetta said. "Our greatest weapon is our moral authority," he added later, and "the sense that we were willing to set that aside, I think, did damage our security."

Panetta, a former California congressman and chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, is expected to be confirmed next week as CIA director, completing Obama's national security team.

In two days of hearings, Panetta promised a clean break with Bush administration policies, even while preserving the CIA's latitude to resume certain aggressive tactics. He testified Thursday that the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding was torture. But the CIA has used other methods over the last eight years - such as manipulation of a detainees' sleep schedule - that Obama could opt to reinstate if they are deemed legal.

Panetta retracted his testimony Thursday that the CIA had sent prisoners to other countries to be tortured. He also clarified the Obama administration's stance on the use of so-called renditions, or secret transfers of prisoners to other countries.

The agency no longer will send prisoners to its own secret detention sites, which are being closed, Panetta said. But, "there is a second kind of rendition, where individuals are turned over to a country for purposes of questioning," he said. "There were efforts by the CIA to seek and to receive assurances that those individuals would not be mistreated."

Panetta made clear that those renditions would continue, largely unchanged from Bush-era policies.

President Obama

held an emotional meeting yesterday with relatives of victims of the bombing of the USS Cole and the Sept. 11 attacks.

He promised

the roughly 40 individuals who attended that the meeting would be the first of many.

Some families

said they welcomed his gesture but were not sure his decision to close Guantanamo Bay, where terrorism suspects are held, is a good move.

He has expressed

concerns that detainees have been held for years without trial. He has signed an executive order to close the facility while he reviews other options.

Retired Navy Cmdr.

Kirk S. Lippold, commander of

the Cole at the time of the 2000 bombing, remained skeptical.

He said that Obama's

stance was "well-intentioned" but that "we still don't have any procedures" for what will become of the terror suspects after the detention center is closed..

The White House

said Obama made clear at the meeting that his most important responsibility is keeping Americans safe.

- Associated Press