CIA interrogations: Congressman, CIA directors voice opposition to Holder's actions

Former CIA directors, who served both Republican and Democrat presidents, urged President Barack Obama to end a criminal investigation of the CIA's "enhanced interrogations" of terror suspects during the war on terrorism. The seven CIA directors made their request in a letter sent Friday to the White House.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced last month that he was appointing an independent counsel to investigate possible incidents of abuse by CIA personnel during interrogations that went beyond guidelines imposed by the Bush administration.

"If criminal investigations closed by career prosecutors during one administration can so easily be reopened at the direction of political appointees in the next, declinations of prosecution will be rendered meaningless," wrote the former directors.

The former directors of Central Intelligence included Michael Hayden, Porter Goss and George Tenet, who served under Bush; John Deutch and James Woolsey, who worked for President Bill Clinton; William Webster, who served under President George H.W. Bush; and James Schlesinger, who ran the agency under President Richard Nixon.

U.S. Congressman Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, released a statement after the former CIA directors sent a letter to President Obama requesting him to reverse Attorney General's decision to re-open investigations into CIA interrogations that had been conducted by career Justice Department prosecutors.

"The political witch hunt and endless investigations against the CIA being conducted by partisan ideologues need to stop. As noted by the former CIA directors, ‘if criminal investigations closed by career prosecutors during one administration can so easily be reopened at the direction of political appointees in the next, declinations of prosecution will be rendered meaningless," said Rep. Hoekstra.

"The Obama Justice Department is wrong to subject the CIA to never-ending second guessing for policies approved and never questioned at the highest levels of the congressional and executive branches. The letter correctly notes the distraction and devastating impact the re-opening of the investigation is having on CIA morale, America’s counterterrorism efforts and our foreign intelligence partnerships," he stated.

"For those of us who have opposed the heavy-handed attempts of the Obama administration to review and reverse the national security judgments of the previous administration, the bipartisan nature of the letter shows that there are broad national security concerns about the decisions being made by this president," he said. 

"President Obama should heed his own advice, and that of this bipartisan group of CIA directors, that we need to move forward and look to the future on these issues. The best way to do that is to end the re-investigation of the CIA launched by one of his political appointees into the previous decisions made by non-political, Justice Department career prosecutors."

"Mr. President, you may disagree with the judgments of the previous administration and Congress, but the men and women of the CIA who have kept our nation safe since 9/11 should not be the ones you ask to pay the price," stated Congressman Hoekstra.