David Ignatius explains just how “successful” the Obama team has been in utterly demoralizing the CIA. He writes:

Talking to CIA veterans this week, I sensed a genuine relief that the agency — however dazed and demoralized by the post-mortems on interrogation — can finally get back to the business of spying.

“The agency is glad to be out of it,” admitted one senior CIA official. The FBI will now run interrogations, with CIA officers in the field advising whether a captive should be played back as a double agent, “rendered” to a third country or questioned in the United States. Stephen Kappes, the career officer who serves as the CIA’s deputy director, “doesn’t want to have anything to do with interrogation,” said one White House official. “He wants to let this go.”

Translation: “Thank goodness we no longer have to do the dangerous, thankless job of defending America.” And of course the notion that someone else is going to “run interrogations” is ludicrous. With the Army Field Manual clutched firmly in their hands, the new “elite” interrogators (housed at FBI actually, run by the NSC) won’t have a whole lot to do. How long does it take to ask, “Is your cell warm enough? Would you tell us your name?”

We see the greatest offense by the Obama administration — reversing Bush-era policies and posing as the defenders of “American values” while neutering our intelligence community. The message to interrogators has been sent loud and clear: no one will defend you, so don’t do anything that some left-wing activist might find troubling. The Obama team is convinced we don’t need effective interrogation of terrorists, perhaps because they think the terrorists aren’t a threat or because they persist in denying that enhanced interrogation techniques worked.

Some president, maybe even this one, may one day need public servants willing to extract vital information to save thousands (or more) Americans. Good luck finding anyone.