Former CIA Directors: Interrogation Program 'Saved Thousands of Lives' - East Idaho News
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Former CIA Directors: Interrogation Program ‘Saved Thousands of Lives’

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6614 CIAHQ?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1418144204648The Central Intelligence Agency(WASHINGTON) — Six former directors and deputy directors of the CIA fired back Tuesday at the Senate Intelligence Committee with a vehemence rarely seen in the intelligence community.

The former CIA leaders — including George Tenet, Porter Goss and Michael Hayden — blasted the Senate report, which harshly criticizes post-9/11 enhanced interrogation techniques, as “one-sided and marred with errors” and called it “a poorly done and partisan attack on the agency that has done the most to protect America after the 9/11 attacks.”

Their 2,500-word rebuttal was posted as an op-ed on the Wall Street Journal website once the report was released. The former intel chiefs are also launching their own website to respond to the attacks on the CIA’s post-9/11 activities.

The former directors argue that the CIA interrogation program “saved thousands of lives” by helping lead to the capture of top al Qaeda operatives and disrupting their plotting.

“A powerful example of the interrogation program’s importance is the information obtained from Abu Zubaydah, a senior al Qaeda operative, and from Khalid Sheik Muhammed, known as KSM, the 9/11 mastermind,” the former directors wrote. “We are convinced that both would not have talked absent the interrogation program.”

As for Osama bin Laden, the former directors outlined the steps that led the Navy SEALs to bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

“The CIA never would have focused on the individual who turned out to be bin Laden’s personal courier without the detention and interrogation program,” they wrote. “So the bottom line is this: The interrogation program formed an essential part of the foundation from which the CIA and the U.S. military mounted the bin Laden operation.”

This is the first opportunity for these former intelligence chiefs to respond to the allegations made in the report.  None of them were interviewed by the Senate Intelligence Committee for its report, nor were any current or former CIA officials.

The former directors argue that the Senate report’s release will do long-standing damage to the United States because it will make foreign intelligence agencies less willing to cooperate with the CIA, give terrorists a new recruiting tool, and make current CIA operatives fearful of future political attacks.

“Many CIA officers will be concerned that being involved in legally approved sensitive actions can open them to politically driven scrutiny and censure from a future administration,” they said.

The CIA, they insist, should instead be praised for protecting the United States.

“The al Qaeda leadership has not managed another attack on the homeland in the 13 years since, despite a strong desire to do so,” they wrote. “The CIA’s aggressive counterterrorism policies and programs are responsible for that success.”


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