The key there, Ratner says, is that the exec order appears to allow for an evaluation as to "whether" -- a key word -- the Army Field Manual techniques are sufficent to "protect the nation." That, he says, allows for the Task Force to find after studying the issue that there may be cases where it's acceptable to go beyond the Army Field Manual.

"It would allow the Task Force to go beyond the Army Field Manual," Ratner told me. He added that this allowed for at least the possibility that the administration could conclude that "based on the recommendations of this commission, we will allow certain techniques to be used in certain circumstances."

"It buys into the argument that somehow more severe [interrogation techniques] are going to somehow get at information that the Army field Manual is able to get at," he continued, adding that it was tantamount to saying that "we'll make an exception if there's some kind of need to do so to get information."

CIA agents are expected to be skeptical of this executive order, and Ratner says he hopes that these lines were put in there as a "sop" to the CIA. Nonetheless, he termed the inclusion of the "loophole" as "terrible."

"I don't like the fact that there's any kind of loophole in an executive order that supposedly outlaws torture," Ratner says.

I guess they could recommend legal action against the previous administration.  But I don't expect it.

The Obama administration has already stated they're not interesting in going after the Bush administration.  But Pelosi is pushing for it (from CNN):

Pelosi is also pushing for an investigation into the Bush administration's handling of the Justice Department, while Obama and his aides say there are other priorities besides focusing on the administration they are succeeding.

"I think that we have to learn from the past, and we cannot let the politicizing of, for example, the Justice Department, go unreviewed," Pelosi said last weekend. "Past is prologue."

But prosecution for past abuses are often the condition imposed for them.  That type of arrangement has been used with respect to horrible acts such as genocide.