Despite the Obama administration's determination to move on rather than look back, the latest release of Bush administration legal memos authorizing torture and near-torture has rekindled the debate on whether justice or expedience should be served.

The detailed memos cry out for further investigations by Congress or an independent commission into higher-up responsibility for interrogation practices that brought dishonor to America's reputation, without solid evidence that much useful intelligence was produced.

Democrat Patrick Leahy of Vermont, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, greeted the release of the memos as proof of the need for an independent commission he has already proposed. He would promise immunity to candid witnesses who saw use of the controversial techniques or themselves employed them.

But President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder both argued that it is more important to move ahead by correcting abuses than to dwell on past practices and seek to punish the abusers, either those who authorized or actually committed the contemptible interrogations.

Obama, in approving the memos' release, said "this is a time for reflection, not retribution" against the perpetrators of a "dark and painful chapter in our history." Holder said "it would be unfair to prosecute dedicated men and women working to protect America for conduct that was sanctioned in advance by the (Bush) Justice Department."

But what about the high department officials who came up with the legal rationales for waterboarding as justifiable torture, and for the other excesses spelled out in the memos written between 2002 and 2005? Former Justice official John Yoo, who was the principal figure behind the memos, and two others already are under investigation by the ethics office of the department, but an independent commission would have much more credibility.

In the wake of the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal that rocked the Bush administration, it was notable that the focus and accountability were on low-level military guards, as higher-ups in the military and in the Justice Department went unscathed.

The Obama administration released the memos under pressure of a court deadline in an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit. To the administration's credit, they were made available with reportedly minimal redactions, against the CIA's wishes for deeper removals.

Obama, in releasing the latest concrete evidence of civil liberties abuses, argued that "nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past."

He is certainly dead wrong in that judgment.

The wide distrust of the past administration's behavior in this area has left a destructive legacy that compels repair by the new one if it is to function effectively. This is especially necessary as Obama is obliged to carry on two inherited wars in which the old inhumane abuses, without vigilance, can easily be repeated.

Reach Jules Witcover at (Unknown address).

Jules Witcover's latest book, on the Nixon-Agnew relationship, "Very Strange Bedfellows," has just been published by Public Affairs Press. Reach him at juleswitcover@earth link.net.