Over on the Huffington Post, former Senator Bob Graham, a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that the criminal prosecution of Bush administration officials involved in implementing torture policies should not "be taken off the table."

The former senator and longtime Florida Democrat said in an interview with the Huffington Post that he favored an inquiry into what transpired during the Bush years "so that there could be a record that is not too distant from the acts themselves for the benefit of the American people and the benefit of history." As a rationale for such an inquiry, he noted that historical knowledge would have benefited the Bush administration officials who did not, according to a report in the New York Times on Wednesday, know about the "gruesome origins of the techniques they were approving."

Regarding the outlines of a possible committee to investigate the Bush administration's tactics, Graham said that it would have to be bipartisan, but could "be done within the Congress or another 9/11 commission-type citizens group."

"As to criminal prosecution," he added, "I don't think that should be taken off the table. But I think it is premature with the current state of knowledge to determine if that is appropriate."

Graham, who served as chair of the intelligence committee until 2002, was one of a handful of lawmakers who was reportedly briefed by the Bush administration about the CIA's interrogation tactics, including the use of waterboarding. His ability to object to these practices, however, was limited do to secrecy restrictions imposed by the agency and White House.

Asked whether he saw anything new in the recently released Bush-era torture memos, Graham responded: "There has been so much in the press over the past two-plus years that there isn't any particularly new information. There were some new details than we had from before and information on the treatment of some of the detainees that was new and I found it to be very distressing."

I have taken the view that those who provided the intellectual underpinnings such Jay Bybee and John Yoo and those who made the political decision such Donald Rumsfeld to institute torture as an instrument of state policy should be held accountable for such blatant violations of American jurisprudence and accepted legal international standards of conduct.

The question is not Who's Politicizing Intelligence Now? as Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard asks but rather who broke the law and on whose order.