7 Ex-CIA Directors Ask Obama to Quash AG’s Probe of Interrogation Tactics

In a letter sent to the White House today, seven former directors of the Central Intelligence Agency ask President Barack Obama to overrule U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to appoint an independent counsel to investigate interrogation tactics the CIA used after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, reports the Associated Press.

''If criminal investigations closed by career prosecutors during one administration can so easily be reopened at the direction of political appointees in the next, declinations of prosecution will be rendered meaningless,'' the authors write.

Such after-the-fact second-guessing can not only discourage CIA officers from doing their work aggressively but discourage foreign governments from cooperating with the United States in terror cases, the letter says.