New Report Will Allege More Harsh CIA Interrogation Measures

WASHINGTON, Aug. 22, 2009— -- In the past, reports on CIA tactics during interrogations of terrorist suspects have ranged from waterboarding to sleep deprivation.

Now, according to media reports, a redacted and partly declassified report from 2004 by the CIA inspector general (IG) will say a handgun and an electric drill were used to try to break down a captured al Qaeda commander, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. First reported by Newsweek, the report will say the CIA wanted to frighten him into thinking he would be shot or tortured.

Former CIA agent Bob Baer says federal law prohibits threatening a prisoner with imminent death.

"I think it is clear that law has been violated in terms of interrogation," he said. "I frankly myself don't see how we can just let this pass."

To some observers, President Obama has seemed unenthusiastic about prosecuting possible crimes during the Bush administration -- -- even before taking office.

"When it comes to national security, what we have to focus on is getting things right in the future as opposed to looking at what we got wrong in the past," Obama told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos last January on "This Week."

But Obama says the decision is up to Attorney General Eric Holder, who could name a special prosecutor to investigate the Bush years.

Holder recently told ABC News' Pierre Thomas that "my obligation as head of the Justice Department is to make sure that the laws are followed and to the extent that we find the laws were broken, to hold people accountable."

Hayden: Special Prosecutor Would Damage CIA Morale

General Michael Hayden, director of the CIA in the Bush years, says a special prosecutor would damage CIA morale.

"I think it's just destructive of this agency and unfair to the good people who did what they did out of duty, not out of enthusiasm, and they did what the nation asked them to do," Hayden said, speaking at the National Press Club this week.

Baer strongly disagrees.

"Look, they're talking about the CIA. It's gonna hurt the morale and the rest of it. It doesn't matter whether it hurts the morale or not. Either the laws were broken or they weren't broken."

Polling by ABC News last April showed Americans were almost evenly split on whether the Obama administration should investigate if laws were broken in the way terrorism suspects were treated under the Bush administration. Fifty percent said they support investigating, and 47 percent were opposed.