WASHINGTON - US Attorney General Eric Holder says the government won't prosecute CIA officials for using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics on terror suspects. The decision comes as the Obama administration releases four long-secret legal memos from the Bush administration authorizing a dozen harsh interrogation techniques against high-value terror suspects. The CIA has acknowledged using waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning, on three high-level terror detainees in 2002 and 2003, with the permission of the White House and the Justice Department. Former CIA Director Michael Hayden said waterboarding has not been used since, but some human rights groups have urged Obama to hold CIA employees accountable for what they, and many Obama officials and others around the world, say was torture. Holder said in a statement Thursday it would be unfair to prosecute CIA employees for following the legal advice given at the time. And he says the government will defend any CIA employee in any court action brought in the U.S. or overseas. Even before President Barack Obama took office, aides signaled his administration was not likely to bring criminal charges against CIA employees for their roles in the secret, coercive terrorist interrogation programme.