The recently-released report from the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee outlines the controversial EIT (Enhanced Interrogation Technique) practices of the CIA post-9/11 interrogation program. The report delves into the specific torture techniques utilized by CIA operatives against detainees for the purposes of obtaining information that would aid national security, and has initiated a firestorm of controversy across the globe. Read on for the important facets of this story.
Sources: FoxNews.com, ABCNews.Go.com, News.Sky.com, HuffingtonPost.com, News.Yahoo.com
The Senate Intelligence Committee’s report was conducted over the course of five years, and cost approximately $40 million USD. It is being touted as the authoritative account of the CIA program, but may open the way for former detainees to open lawsuits against the U.S., as well as further inquiries into specific incidents.
The 500-page report outlines the various torture practices that were committed by CIA operatives against detainees. Some practices, such as waterboarding, were approved by the Justice Department at the time, while others, such as rectal feeding, death threats, and beating, were not.
High-level Bush administration officials have publicly stated that they were fully briefed on the CIA’s actions, and that the agency did not misrepresent information on the torture techniques being used, as alleged in the Senate report. In some instances, officials admitted to both commissioned and authorized some aspects of the CIA program. This is partially due to the fact that the investigative committee had jurisdiction over the intelligence community, but not over the White House.
While the harshest interrogations were carried out in 2002 and 2003 in the direct wake of the 9/11 attacks, the program continued until 2007, and 39 detainees in total were subject.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein, a senator for California, made arrangements with Panetta for the investigation. In his recently released memoir, Panetta acknowledges he agreed to the investigation without consulting the White House, and approved a massive disclosure of millions of CIA documents to investigators in 2009.
While the CIA stands behind the fact that the torture techniques used were the sole manner in which they could obtain critical information – information that, among other things, helped the CIA find and kill Osama bin Laden – the report argues that other methods were available.
In a move that suggests embedded institutional protection of the White House, the Obama administration withheld approximately 9,400 of over 6 million documents from the Senate committee, citing “executive branch confidentiality interests.”
Source: HuffingtonPost.com
Some have expressed their belief that the Senate report does not go far enough, as it does not offer recommendations for improving upon the systemic problems it highlights, nor does it make any suggestions for legal actions against the perpetrators.
Though it was initially denied, Britain admitted that they asked for changes in the Senate report for issues regarding national security. 24 meetings since 2009 were held between UK politicians and diplomats and members of the Senate Committee, in which British intelligence agencies discussed redactions with their American counterparts. Prime Minister David Cameron’s Deputy Spokeswoman confirmed this, stating, “Any redactions sought there were done on national security grounds in a way we would have done with any other report.”
Source: News.Sky.com
In an interview with Fox News, Dick Cheney, the Vice President under George W. Bush, during the time investigated in the report, bashed the report, citing flawed findings and biased presentations. He said, “I think it is a terrible report, deeply flawed. It’s a classic example of where politicians get together and throw professionals under the bus…The notion that the agency was operating on a rogue basis was just a flat out lie.”
Source: ABCNews.Go.com
In an unprecedented televised news conference at CIA headquarters, Director John Brennan acknowledged that CIA operatives did “abhorrent” things to detainees, but that the program was successful overall as it obtained “useful and valuable” information. Brennan said, “I certainly agree that there were times when CIA officers exceeded the policy guidance that was given and the authorized techniques that were approved and determined to be lawful. They went outside the bounds…I will leave to others to how they might want to label those activities. But for me, it was something that is certainly regrettable.”
Source: News.Yahoo.com
In a statement following the report’s release, President Obama said, “These techniques did significant damage to America’s standing in the world and made it harder to pursue our interests with allies and partners.” Secretary of State John Kerry echoed the sentiment, stating, “It was right to end these practices for a simple but powerful reason: they were at odds with our values. They are not who we are, and they’re not who or what we had to become, because the most powerful country on earth doesn’t have to choose between protecting our security and promoting our values.”
Source: News.Yahoo.com
Mike Baker, former CIA covert operations officer and current president of Diligence, a global intelligence and security company voiced the fears of those who are concerned the report will be used as justification for violence against the United States, “This leaves us with a propaganda piece that is a very useful tool not only for North Korea and other hostile nations, but more dangerously, for the Muslim extremists of ISIS and Al Qaeda who will use this to enhance their recruitment and propaganda efforts and to attempt to entice their supporters into violence.”
Source: FoxNews.com
State-run media outlets and country spokespeople from North Korea, China, Russia, and Iran have all issued statements that condemn torture and the recent revelations about the CIA’s practices, despite their own countries’ poor human rights records. For instance, Pyongyang-run media commentary in North Korea, where mass starvation and brutal prison camps are commonplace, even went so far as to comment on the recent controversy of police actions in the U.S., stating, “Why the UN Security Council is turning its face from the inhuman torture practiced by the CIA over which the UN anti-torture committee expressed particular concern…and such despicable human rights abuses as white American policemen’s brutalities of shooting and strangling black men to death.”
Source: FoxNews.com
Despite the international outcry over the report, CIA Director John Brennan refused to categorically state that the organization would cease to use EITs in the future, putting the onus of making those decisions on other government branches, “We are not contemplating at all getting back into the detention program using any of those EITs. So I defer to the policymakers in future times when there is going to be the need to be able to ensure that this country stays safe if we face a similar type of crisis.”
Source: News.Yahoo.com