Senate Report Reveals CIA’s ‘Brutal’ Interrogation Tactics

Alex Wong/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released an exhaustive and explosive report Tuesday on the CIA’s interrogation practices, saying the agency repeatedly misled Americans and deeply mismanaged the program that was secretly put into place after the 9/11 terror attacks.

The controversial, five-year study by the committee, which was conducted after reviewing more than six million pages of internal CIA records, found that the interrogation techniques used on more than 100 detainees “were not effective” and the management of the program “was inadequate and deeply flawed.”

The report also indicates the techniques used in the CIA program were “far more brutal” than was relayed to lawmakers and the public.

“It shows that the CIA’s actions a decade ago are a stain on our value and on our history,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on the Senate floor. “The release of this 500-page summary cannot remove that stain but it can and does say to our people and the world that America is big enough to admit when it’s wrong and confident enough to learn from its mistakes. Releasing this report is an important step to restore our values and show the world that we are in fact a just and lawful society.”

The report examines 20 specific cases, in which the CIA claimed some type of success in retrieval of information from the interrogation procedures, but the report says those examples were found to be wrong.

The report also says the management of the interrogation program was flawed, pointing to an example from November 2002 when a detainee who had been held partially nude and chained to a concrete floor and wall died from suspected hypothermia. A junior CIA officer was in charge of this facility, which is identified with the pseudonym COBALT. According to the report, senior leadership at the CIA had no knowledge of operations at COBALT.

The report also details techniques that were allegedly “far more brutal” than previously revealed. The report highlights one interrogation session with the CIA’s first detainee, Abu Zabaydah, in which he became “completely unresponsive with bubbles rising through his open full mouth.” Additionally, at least five detainees were subjected to “rectal feeding” or “rectal hydration.”

President Obama said the techniques detailed in the report “did significant damage to America’s standing in the world.”

“The report documents a troubling program involving enhanced interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects in secret facilities outside the United States, and it reinforces my long-held view that these harsh methods were not only inconsistent with our values as nation, they did not serve our broader counterterrorism efforts or our national security interests,” Obama said. “Moreover, these techniques did significant damage to America’s standing in the world and made it harder to pursue our interests with allies and partners. That is why I will continue to use my authority as President to make sure we never resort to those methods again.”

Along with the majority report led by Feinstein, Republicans on the committee released a report opposing the release of the study.

“As we have both stated before, we are opposed to this study and believe it will present serious consequences for U.S. national security,” Sen. Saxby Chambliss, ranking member of the committee, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement. “Regardless of what one’s opinions may be on these issues, the study by Senate Democrats is an ideologically motivated and distorted recounting of historical events.”

“The fact that the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation program developed significant intelligence that helped us identify and capture important al-Qa’ida terrorists, disrupt their ongoing plotting, and take down Osama Bin Ladin is incontrovertible. Claims included in this report that assert the contrary are simply wrong,” they continued.

But some Republicans did support release of the report, like Arizona Sen. John McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam.

“I know from personal experience that the abuse of prisoners will produce more bad than good intelligence. I know that victims of torture will offer intentionally misleading information if they think their captors will believe it. I know they will say whatever they think their torturers want them to say if they believe it will stop their suffering,” McCain said. “Most of all, I know the use of torture compromises that which most distinguishes us from our enemies, our belief that all people, even captured enemies, possess basic human rights, which are protected by international conventions the U.S. not only joined, but for the most part authored.”

In a response to Tuesday’s report, several former CIA 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 in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. “We are convinced that both would not have talked absent the interrogation program.”

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