It's unknown whether Helgerson's review lead Tenet to request the memos from the White House.Â
According to the Post report, "the CIA's anxiety was partly fueled by the lack of explicit presidential authorization for the interrogation program" and "Tenet seemed...interested in protecting his subordinates" from legal liability.
Last week, after the four "torture" memos were released, Attorney General Eric Holder said he told the CIA that the federal government would provide legal representation "to any employee, at no cost to the employee, in any state or federal judicial or administrative proceeding brought against the employee based on such conduct and would take measures to respond to any proceeding initiated against the employee in any international or foreign tribunal, including appointing counsel to act on the employee's behalf and asserting any available immunities and other defenses in the proceeding itself."
"To the extent permissible under federal law, the government will also indemnify any employee for any monetary judgment or penalty ultimately imposed against him for such conduct and will provide representation in congressional investigations," Holder said. "It would be unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women working to protect America for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the Justice Department."
But Helgerson's report, if made public, could change all that.
According to New Yorker reporter Jane Mayer, Helgerson concluded that some detainees were allegedly killed during interrogations, according to New Yorker reporter Jane Mayer.
In an interview with Harper's magazine last year, Mayer said Helgerson "investigated several alleged homicides involving CIA detainees" and forwarded several of those cases "to the Justice Department for further consideration and potential prosecution."
"Why have there been no charges filed? It's a question to which one would expect that Congress and the public would like some answers," Mayer said. "Sources suggested to me that... it is highly uncomfortable for top Bush Justice officials to prosecute these cases because, inevitably, it means shining a light on what those same officials sanctioned."
In her book, The Dark Side, Mayer wrote that Helgerson was "looking into at least three deaths of CIA-held prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq."
Helgerson "had serious questions about the agency's mistreatment of dozens more, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed," Mayer wrote, adding that there was a belief by some "insiders that [Helgerson's investigation] would end with criminal charges for abusive interrogations."Â
The ACLU has filed a Freedom of Information act lawsuit to gain access to Helgerson's report. Portions of the report have already been turned over to the organization, but much of it was heavily redacted. If the ACLU prevails, as it did in its litigation over the "torture" memos, and Helgerson's report is released it will no doubt further fuel the debate over the need for a criminal investigation.
According to Mayer, Helgerson's report is "tens of thousands of pages long and as thick as two Manhattan phone books."
"It contained information, according to one source, that was simply 'sickening,'" Mayer wrote. "The behavior it described, another knowledgeable source said, raised concerns not just about the detainees but also about the Americans who had inflicted the abuse, one of whom seemed to have become frighteningly dehumanized. The source said, "You couldn't read the documents without wondering, "Why didn't someone say, 'Stop!'"
According to Mayer, Vice President Dick Cheney stopped Helgerson from fully completing his investigation. That proves, Mayer contends, that as early as 2004 "the Vice President's office was fully aware that there were allegations of serious wrongdoing in The [interrogation] Program."
"Helgerson was summoned repeatedly to meet privately with Vice President Cheney" before his investigation was "stopped in its tracks." Mayer said that Cheney's interaction with Helgerson was "highly unusual."
One person who was concerned about the CIA's interrogation program was Mary O. McCarthy, who alleged CIA officials "lied" to members of Congress during an intelligence briefing when they said the agency did not violate treaties that bar, cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of detainees during interrogations, according to a May 14, 2006, front-page story in The Washington Post.
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