Heaven help any American prisoners being held in the Middle East today. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released its summary of a five-year investigation into so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” used by the Central Intelligence Agency during the years following the September 11 attacks. The 500-page document is a harrowing journey into the heart of the grotesque, medieval underbelly of the CIA’s torturing of suspected terrorist detainees.
Outside of any other consideration or observation one might take away from the Senate’s report on “enhanced interrogation techniques,” I can think of one thing that bests illustrates our hypocrisy on this subject:
George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are still walking the Earth as free men…and the CIA acknowledged that it “did not always live up to the high standards that we set for ourselves” and “made mistakes.”
So much for accountability.
Above and beyond anything else, the architects of our “enhanced interrogation” policy (yes, America DOES torture) have yet to be held responsible for their crimes. And when I say crimes, that’s exactly what their decisions and associated actions represent. The likelihood that Bush and Cheney (or anyone else) will likely never be brought to account for their crimes should be a matter of national shame. No reasonably well-informed person could credibly claim that America doesn’t engage in torture, but the Senate report is even worse than I’d imagined it might be.
In an introduction to the report, Sen. Dianne Feinstein clearly states that the CIA’s detention and interrogation program was conducted in “violation of US law, treaty obligations and our values.” And yet the former President and Vice President remain free, unlikely ever to be tried on war crimes charges. The likelihood of ANYONE being brought to account for this dark chapter in our history decreases with each passing day. When former CIA Director Michael Hayden can say with a straight face and no trace of irony that the agency thought they were “doing the nation’s will,” something is deeply, horribly amiss.
Senate Torture Report: We tortured. It didn’t work. We lied about it. But the good news is no one was ever held accountable!
— Top Conservative Cat (@TeaPartyCat) December 9, 2014
The report details 16 awful and abusive practices disguised as “enhanced interrogation techniques.” None of these are practices ANYONE representing a country that claims to prize freedom should employ…under ANY circumstance.
Words and phrases like “waterboarding,” “rectal feeding and rehydration,” “ice water baths,” “sleep deprivation,” and “stress positions” aren’t things that should be part of our vocabulary. There’s absolutely no moral or operational reason to employ torture, especially when you consider there’s no proof that the CIA’s illegal and immoral tactics were effective. The CIA acknowledged in the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s that torture is not an effective source of actionable intelligence…yet it seems to be the CIA’s default in time of crisis. It that isn’t the very definition of insanity, I don’t know what would be.
I don’t want to fall victim to the desire to engage in instant, substantive analysis; there are too many who’ve already taken that leap. The report will and should take time to digest and process. For now, the Senate Intelligence Committee’s 20 findings (after the jump) offer a pretty good place to begin considering what should happen next:
1: The CIA’s use of its enhanced interrogation techniques was not an effective means of acquiring intelligence or gaining cooperation from detainees.
2: The CIA’s justification for the use of its enhanced interrogation techniques rested on inaccurate claims of their effectiveness.
3: The interrogations of CIA detainees were brutal and far worse than the CIA represented to policymakers and others.
4: The conditions of confinement for CIA detainees were harsher than the CIA had represented to policymakers and others.
5: The CIA repeatedly provided inaccurate information to the Department of Justice, impeding a proper legal analysis of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program.
6: The CIA has actively avoided or impeded congressional oversight of the program.
7: The CIA impeded effective White House oversight and decision-making.
8: The CIA’s operation and management of the program complicated, and in some cases impeded, the national security missions of other Executive Branch agencies.
9: The CIA impeded oversight by the CIA’s Office of Inspector General.
10: The CIA coordinated the release of classified information to the media, including inaccurate information concerning the effectiveness of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques.
11: The CIA was unprepared as it began operating its Detention and Interrogation Program more than six months after being granted detention authorities.
12: The CIA’s management and operation of its Detention and Interrogation Program was deeply flawed throughout the program’s duration, particularly so in 2002 and early 2003.
13: Two contract psychologists devised the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques and played a central role in the operation, assessments, and management of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program. By 2005, the CIA had overwhelmingly outsourced operations related to the program.
14: CIA detainees were subjected to coercive interrogation techniques that had not been approved by the Department of Justice or had not been authorized by CIA Headquarters.
15: The CIA did not conduct a comprehensive or accurate accounting of the number of individuals it detained, and held individuals who did not meet the legal standard for detention. The CIA’s claims about the number of detainees held and subjected to its enhanced Interrogation techniques were inaccurate.
16: The CIA failed to adequately evaluate the effectiveness of its enhanced interrogation techniques.
17: The CIA rarely reprimanded or held personnel accountable for serious and significant violations, inappropriate activities, and systemic and individual management failures.
18: The CIA marginalized and ignored numerous internal critiques, criticisms, and objections concerning the operation and management of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program.
19: The CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program was inherently unsustainable and had effectively ended by 2006 due to unauthorized press disclosures, reduced cooperation from other nations, and legal and oversight concerns.
20: The CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program damaged the United States’ standing in the world, and resulted in other significant monetary and non-monetary costs.
I suppose this is what happens when you’re so determined to defeat your enemy that you succumb to temptation and in so doing BECOME your enemy. We may have defeated the terrorists, but it’s very likely would have emerged victorious without resorting to torture- the Jack Bauer theory of enhanced interrogation techniques Does. Not Work. This program was unnecessary and destructive to our long-term interests as well as our moral compass and vision of who we are as a country.
Personally, I’m still trying to wrap my head around the truth that not only did the CIA engage in torture, they lied to the American people about it…and thus far, no one’s been held accountable.
WE DESERVE BETTER.
