President-elect Barack Obama seems reluctant to authorize an inquiry into the Bush administration’s “delicate” programs such as the way of dealing with the terrorism suspects and the domestic eavesdropping.

During the presidential campaign, Obama harshly criticized some counterterrorism tactics used by the Bush administration. Now that he was elected the United States’ 44th President, Obama and his administration have to cope with competing demands. The liberals are pushing for wide-ranging criminal investigations while the administration needs to establish trust among the country’s intelligence agencies.

During an interview on the ABC News program “This Week With George Stephanopoulos,” the show’s host asked Obama about his view on this issue. The President-elect answered that there should be prosecutions if there will be cases of “blatantly” law breaking, but the interrogation and detention issues are still under evaluation.

“I don’t want them [the CIA] to suddenly feel like they’ve got spend their all their time looking over their shoulders,” said Obama.

The Bush administration was criticized for authorizing interrogation tactics that push the line of the federal law and also allowed domestic wiretapping without warrants. The interrogation method which caused the most controversy was waterboarding.

Waterboarding is a form of torture that mainly consists of immobilizing a person on his or her back, with the head inclined downward, and pouring water over the face and into the breathing passages. Through forced suffocation and inhalation of water, the subject experiences the process of drowning in a controlled environment and is made to believe that death is imminent.

On the other hand, President George W. Bush said that it would not be a smart move to abandon the interrogation tools used by his administration on suspected terrorists.

“The techniques were necessary and are necessary to be used on a rare occasion to get information necessary to protect the American people,” Bush said. He added that it would be a problem because “these are tools that we have in place.”