EXCLUSIVE: Gonzales supports Holder on CIA probe

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By Ben Conery and Joseph Weber

Mr. Gonzales' words won backhanded praise from human rights watchdog groups, who noted exactly the fact Mr. Gonzales did: that the probe focuses on the CIA agents who conducted the interrogations while doing nothing about Bush administration legal officials who told the agents they could take those actions.

Tom Malinowski, the Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, said that "there's a kind of dumb honesty to Mr. Gonzales."

"There is no reason why he shouldn't support this investigation because, at least on the face of it, it appears to validate the Bush-era legal memos concerning interrogations," he said. "The indications are Holder's investigation will focus on interrogators who went beyond the Justice Department guidance and what that suggests to Mr. Gonzales is that those who authorized techniques like waterboarding have nothing to fear."

Mr. Malinowski described such an investigation as a "safe investigation" for former senior officials and is "not surprised Mr. Gonzales is happy about it, strange as it may sound to have him speaking in support of this investigation."

Devon Chaffee, advocacy counsel for Human Rights First, said Mr. Gonzales "is right to praise Attorney General Holder for doing his job and upholding the law and for investigating crimes he suspects may have been committed." But she said Mr. Holder needs to broaden his inquiry, though she declined to specify Mr. Gonzales.

"In this case, accountability can't stop at the front line. It has to reach those most responsible for crafting illegal policies that put lower-level agents in jeopardy of criminal liability," she said.

Ms. Chaffee would not speculate about whether Mr. Gonzales could be among those who would be found criminally liable for helping to form Bush administration interrogation policies. "Obviously, there's a lot of information we don't have," she said.

At the other end of the political spectrum, Rep. Peter T. King of New York, the ranking Republican on the House Committee on Homeland Security and a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said Mr. Gonzales was wrong in assuming that the current attorney general's decision was about the law, or anything besides politics or ideology.

"I don't know the reason for it," he said. "I just think Gonzales is missing the larger point here: This is either a political decision or a liberal philosophical decision by Holder."

Mr. King said Mr. Holder's decision to reopen the case "has all the indicators of a political investigation, a political decision," because "these cases have already been investigated by the Justice Department, have already been examined, to reopen them has to have a chilling effect and violates the spirit of double jeopardy."