Mayer writes:

Among the few C.I.A. officials who knew the details of the detention and interrogation program, there was a tense debate about where to draw the line in terms of treatment. John Brennan, Tenet's former chief of staff, said, "It all comes down to individual moral barometers."

and

Without more transparency, the value of the C.I.A.'s interrogation and detention program is impossible to evaluate. Setting aside the moral, ethical, and legal issues, even supporters, such as John Brennan, acknowledge that much of the information that coercion produces is unreliable. As he put it, "All these methods produced useful information, but there was also a lot that was bogus."

Brennan's involvement and endorsement of the program is clear.  Torture is useful.  He is included by Mayer in the group of officials "who knew the details of the detention and interrogation program."  Brennan's involvement with this group of people and acknowledgment of the program's success really makes me wonder - what is your moral barometer Brennan?  

This is relevant in terms of the type of advice Brennan is giving Obama, and in terms of absolutely ANY EFFORT made by the Obama administration to determine the extent of Bush's abuse of detainees.  No torture commission of any integrity is possible if Brennan is the head of the CIA.

Will Brennan resign from being head of the CIA when his role in the torture program is laid out on the table?  Mayer hints at the level of involvement had by Brennan's boss, George Tenet:

The program is monitored closely by C.I.A. lawyers, and supervised by the agency's director and his subordinates at the Counterterrorism Center. While Mohammed was being held by the agency, detailed dossiers on the treatment of detainees were regularly available to the former C.I.A. director George Tenet, according to informed sources inside and outside the agency. Through a spokesperson, Tenet denied making day-to-day decisions about the treatment of individual detainees. But, according to a former agency official, "Every single plan is drawn up by interrogators, and then submitted for approval to the highest possible level--meaning the director of the C.I.A. Any change in the plan--even if an extra day of a certain treatment was added--was signed off by the C.I.A. director."

From 2004-2005, "subordinates at the Counterterrorism Center" included DIRECTOR John Brennan.  John Brennan, supervisor of torture.  Head of Obama's CIA?  I hope not.

John Brennan, current head of Obama's national security transition team, is probably hoping to be in it for the long haul.  Wouldn't you?  After all, if you go so far as stepping down from your lucrative CEO role for a government contractor, you are probably expecting a little more than a thank you card from Obama.  God knows if Bush actually pardons "loyalists who designed or oversaw his most secretive tactics in the war on terror" John Brennan may be one of them [see Salon on Bush's Pardons].

John Brennan's involvement with Obama's team is at heart a moral issue.  If this country is to truly change and come to grips with its (let's hope brief) status as a country that tortures, it will have to at least sever its government ties with the leaders of these programs of torture and rendition.  Even if Obama does not prosecute for a variety of reasons, it is important that we throw off these officials and find out what it is they did.  Obama needs to draw a line.

Because no torture commission is going to happen if Brennan is the head of the CIA.  It will somehow be forgotten.  Tenet recently joined the advisory board of Brennan's enterprise, The Analysis Corp. - in 2006 [Post, Salon].  Do you think these two men are going to have anything nasty to say about each other?  Read how they point fingers (away from themselves, of course) in unison here at Mondoweiss.  

Amy Goodman did a really excellent show on Brennan here.  Dig in her archives for her program with Mayer.  The Brennan program is particularly good as she interviews two people who can cut through the B.S.:

AMY GOODMAN: That's John Brennan, who heads up the transition team on intelligence. Mel Goodman?

MELVIN GOODMAN: Well, John Brennan is being completely dishonest there. All of the operational people I've talked to know that the people who were turned over to the Arab intelligence services--and remember, this is Egypt, this is Syria, this is Jordan, this is Saudi Arabia--that all of these foreign intelligence services commit torture and abuse. Now, if any of these suspects had anything to say to us that was of any utility, we would have kept them. We would have controlled these people. They would have become our sources and our assets. When we turned them over, we were turning over people who we felt had very little to offer, and we were turning over them to them, to the Arab liaison services for torture and abuse.

NO John Brennan.