The options for interrogating prisoners weren’t, as Rizzo said, “gone.” But interrogation and detention had clearly become a briar patch for the new administration: Besides the decision to shut Guantánamo Bay within a year, there were also concerns among Obama’s team that capturing prisoners and handing them over to foreign governments could ignite liberal criticism that the administration was outsourcing torture. At the same time, no prominent member of President Obama’s own party had criticized drone strikes, and Republicans were hardly in a position to challenge the new president for
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