CIA Used Gun, Drill in Interrogation

The Obama administration has made no move to prosecute former high ranking Bush administration officials for torture, but has left open the possibility of charging anyone who exceeded Bush-era guidelines on the treatment of terror suspects.

White House spokesman Burton says President Obama's view of the matter has not changed.

"He [Obama] does agree with the attorney general that anyone who conducted actions that had been sanctioned [by the Bush administration] should not be prosecuted," he said. "But ultimately, the decisions on who is investigated and who is prosecuted are up to the attorney general. The president thinks that Eric Holder, who he appointed as a very independent attorney general, should make those decisions."

Attorney General Holder later selected federal prosecutor John Durham to investigate prisoner abuse cases. Durham is already probing the destruction of dozens of videotapes of CIA interrogations that could have shed additional light on U.S. treatment of terror suspects.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department released a declassified CIA report from 2004 detailing past interrogations of terror suspects and the techniques that were used. In one case, a U.S. interrogator reportedly threatened to kill the children of detained al Qaida mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed if new terrorist attacks were launched on the United States.