U.S. & World News

WASHINGTON (CBS) ― Saying the U.S. lost "our moral bearings" with gruesome interrogations of suspected terrorists, President Barack Obama left the door open Tuesday to possible prosecution of those who authorized the methods used during the Bush administration.

"That is going to be more of a decision for the attorney general within the parameters of various laws and I don't want to prejudge that," he said after a White House meeting with King Abdullah of Jordan.

Mr. Obama has said he does not want to see prosecutions of CIA agents and interrogators who took part in waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics, as long as they acted within the advice from superiors that such practices were legal at the time. But the Obama administration's stance on the Bush administration lawyers who wrote the memos approving these tactics has been less clear, and the president declined to make that question black-and-white.

"There are a host of very complicated issues involved," he said.

Mr. Obama took a question on the topic for the first time since he ordered last Thursday's release of top-secret Bush-era memos that give the government's first full accounting of the CIA's use of simulated drowning and other harsh methods while questioning terror suspects. Mr. Obama banned all the techniques days after taking office, but lawsuits and members of Congress have continued to seek the release of information about the early stages of the U.S. response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks under former President George W. Bush.

The president also said he worries about the impact of high-intensity, politicized hearings on how detainees were treated.

Nevertheless, he said he could support a congressional inquiry, though only if it was conducted in a bipartisan way "outside of the typical hearing process" and with the participation of "independent participants who are above reproach." This, he said, could help ensure that any investigation would be a tool to learn, not to provide partisan advantage to one side or another.

"That would probably be a more sensible approach to take," Mr. Obama said. "I'm not saying that it should be done, I'm saying that if you've got a choice."

The president made clear that his preference would be not to revisit the era extensively. He said the nation should look forward, not backward, reports CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller.

"I do worry about this getting so politicized that we cannot function effectively and it hampers our ability to carry out critical national security operations," Mr. Obama said.

Last week, Mr. Obama's Justice Department published previously classified memos that described the Bush administration's legal justification for CIA interrogation techniques that included methods criticized as torture.

On one side, Republican lawmakers and former CIA chiefs have criticized the memos' release, contending that revealing the limits of interrogation techniques will hamper the effectiveness of interrogators and critical U.S. relationships with foreign intelligence services.

On the other side, the memos' release has appeared to increase calls for further investigations of the Bush-era terrorist treatment program and for prosecutions of those responsible for any techniques that crossed the line into torture.

(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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