The Obama administration and senior national-security officials are reviewing whether to release additional Central Intelligence Agency memos on interrogation methods, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney has requested that the administration declassify additional CIA memos that he said would show the tactics worked.
Mr. Gibbs said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that the review process would take about three weeks.
President Obama banned the use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques immediately after taking office. This month, his administration released classified memos from 2002 and 2005 that revealed new details about the interrogations, including a detailed description of waterboarding, or simulated drowning, and descriptions of lesser-known methods used on detainees, such as slamming them into a wall and the use of insects.
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After some initial confusion, the White House clarified late last week that it opposes an independent commission to examine the previous administration’s interrogation policy.
But proponents of such a plan continued to call Sunday for more investigation.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy, (D., Vt.) said he wants a nonpartisan or bipartisan commission to look at the issue, similar to the 9-11 Commission formed after the 2001 terrorist attacks. “I know some people say, ‘Let’s turn the page.’ Frankly, I’d like to read the page before we turn it,” he said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
