Report: CIA Lacked Safeguards to Prevent Abuse of Terror Suspects

WASHINGTON -- The Central Intelligence Agency lacked clear safeguards to prevent abuses in its network of secret prisons for terror suspects, and interrogators had inadequate training and oversight, a long-withheld 2004 report found, according to current and former officials who have read the document.

The report -- significant portions of which are scheduled for release Monday -- has been much anticipated in Washington. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is expected as soon as this week to decide whether to launch a probe to determine if guidelines were violated, officials familiar with his thinking say.

A judge ordered the CIA to release the closely held report by Aug. 24 as part of a freedom of information lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union. The 2004 report by then-Inspector General John Helgerson portrays an agency ill-equipped to imprison and interrogate terrorist suspects, according to officials.

The report was sent to the Justice Department and congressional leaders in 2004, but distributed to only a few at the CIA. The report describes several cases that were referred to the Justice Department for criminal investigation, a former senior intelligence official said.

Helgerson's team found that some officials crossed the program's legal bounds. The report found that waterboarding was used excessively and suggested that the program violated international law.

"The CIA in no way endorsed behavior -- no matter how infrequent -- that went beyond formal guidance," said CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano. The spy agency declined to comment on the details of the yet-to-be-released report.

The report is likely to give more ammunition to critics of Bush-era counterterrorism programs, and it may tarnish the U.S. image in the eyes of allies and provide further material for extremist propaganda. It may also unleash fresh fights over the CIA's 2005 destruction of 92 videotapes of interrogations, said John Radsan, a former CIA counsel, who left the agency in 2004. "The pressure would be even greater [for a new investigation] if Holder had taken a look at those tapes," Radsan said.

On Capitol Hill, Republicans and Democrats have been pounding each other over CIA-related matters since April. Democrats recently accused the CIA of breaking the law by withholding plans for a secret hit squad targeting Al Qaeda leaders. CIA Director Leon Panetta has said he didn't tell Congress the CIA had broken the law.

The Obama administration, which closed the CIA prisons, is now weighing a proposal to establish a team of trained interrogators from intelligence and law-enforcement agencies for important detainees. The Pentagon recently began requiring timely notification to the International Committee of the Red Cross of detainees at two military Special Operations camps, which was reported earlier by the New York Times.

Helgerson's report has sparked controversy within the CIA since the inquiry began. Officials at the time charged that the probe was inhibiting the work of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center, according to one former intelligence official familiar with the matter.

Click here to read the full report from the Wall Street Journal.