AT the height of the American-led war on terror, George W Bush began to encounter an unexpected problem. The use of harsh interrogation techniques on captured Al-Qaeda terrorists caused a damaging rift with leading US allies, among them Britain and Israel, according to a former State Department official.

Philip Zelikow, a senior adviser to Condoleezza Rice, then secretary of state, revealed last week that “some of Europe’s best allies found it increasingly difficult to assist us in counterterrorism, because they feared becoming complicit in a programme their governments abhorred”.

A member of Barack Obama’s presidential transition team also disclosed yesterday that during a series of secret briefings late last year at the CIA, aides to the then president-elect were told that several foreign intelligence services had refused to share information about the location of terrorism suspects for fear of becoming implicated in the use of torture during interrogations.

Evidence of allied resistance to US anti-terror tactics added yet another layer of controversy to an anguished debate about torture that has confounded Obama’s attempts to draw a curtain over the past and is threatening to overshadow his presidential record as he marks his 100th day in office on Wednesday.

After a week of ugly disclosures and furious recriminations, it was clear that far from laying the torture issue to rest, Obama has created a legal and political nightmare that may haunt his presidency.

A barrage of revelations about who knew what about torture and when will be followed this week by the release of hundreds of photographs depicting abuse of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan during the Bush administration.

Officials insist there is nothing in the photos as shocking as previously circulated pictures of abuse at Abu Ghraib, the Baghdad prison. But they are certain to arouse Middle Eastern anger just when the US military is struggling to contain a renewed outbreak of suicide bombings that killed at least 159 people in Iraq last week.

Hillary Clinton, Rice’s successor as secretary of state, arrived in Baghdad for a surprise visit yesterday and sought to calm local alarm by describing the latest bombings as “a signal that rejectionists fear Iraq is going in the right direction”.

The Pentagon photographs, which are being released to avoid an embarrassing legal battle that was heading for the US Supreme Court, will also fan demands from many of Obama’s supporters for a formal commission of inquiry to consider prosecutions of officials who authorised or engaged in torture. The proposal has divided America, provoked consternation at the CIA and is causing serious strains within the president’s Democratic party.

Several former Bush aides and ex-CIA officials warned last week that what some described as a “witch-hunt” would have disastrous effects on US counterterrorist capabilities, crippling the CIA’s intelligence gathering and bolstering the morale of America’s enemies.

“We ask these [CIA agents] to do extremely dangerous things, things they’ve been ordered to do by legal authorities, with the understanding that they will get top cover if something goes wrong,” said Mark Lowenthal, a former CIA assistant director.

“They don’t believe they have that cover any more and [releasing the photographs] will make it much worse.”

There was also alarm at suggestions that the government should prosecute Bush administration lawyers who wrote widely criticised memos justifying the use of waterboarding (simulated drowning) and other extreme methods.

Senator John McCain, Obama’s former presidential opponent, argued that criminalising legal advice would have “a terribly chilling effect” on any advice a future president might need from his lawyers.

McCain added: “To go back on a witch-hunt that could last for a year or so, frankly, is going to be bad for the country.”

At the same time, the Democrats’ liberal wing continued to press for prosecutions. A coalition of activist groups - several of which played a key role in mobilising grass-roots and internet support for Obama – delivered a petition with 250,000 signatures to the justice department, demanding the appointment of an independent prosecutor.

Senator Russ Feingold, a liberal Democrat from Wisconsin, wrote to Obama urging him “not to rule out prosecutions”. Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, called for the resignation of Jay Bybee, a former White House lawyer who signed the original torture opinion and who has since become a federal judge.

It was, in short, exactly what Obama had hoped to avoid when Rahm Emanuel, his chief of staff, indicated at the start of the week that the lawyers who cleared the use of torture should not be prosecuted.

Quite apart from Emanuel’s incautious trespassing on independent legal turf - under the US constitution no president can decide who should or should not be prosecuted – it quickly emerged that Obama had seriously misjudged the reaction to the memos’ release.

As he muddled his way through a confusing series of statements about what kind of investigation he favoured, the president managed to upset both conservatives and liberals.

Frustration at the White House was palpable as one senior aide complained: “We really do want to move on and we don’t want to look back. It can absorb a lot of time and attention and we have a lot to do.” One Democratic strategist noted: “They look confused and beaten down by critics.”

As countless Americans joined the torture debate online, one contributor noted: “The more Obama digs up the past, the more he is digging his own grave – looks like the things revealed hurt the Democrats more than the Republicans.”

The White House has long dismissed discussion of the president’s first 100 days as a media gimmick, but Obama will nonetheless mark the occasion this week with another prime-time press conference.

He wants to talk about stimulating the economy, creating jobs and reforming healthcare. Yet most of the early questions are likely to be about torture.

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