The detailed release this week of the Senate Intelligence Committee's executive summary of its yearslong investigation into the Central Intelligence Agency's detention and interrogation program is worse than many expected. It portrays horrendous torture techniques that are disgusting: from waterboarding to sleep deprivation, from rectal feedings to playing Russian roulette with a detainee. Even some Senate committee members were aghast at the information they discovered. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) said that the CIA misled Congress, the public, and even former President George W. Bush, who authorized the program in the wake of 9/11.
Media outlets reported Tuesday that the interrogation techniques "were far more brutal than publicly revealed" and "went far beyond the scope of Justice Department approvals." When our own government agencies can't follow guidelines issued by the lawyers, you know there's a problem. Key officials like former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell were kept out of the loop. Even Bush wasn't told about some of the techniques used until four years later.
The report does not call the tactics torture, but Feinstein did.
"The CIA's actions a decade ago are a stain on our history and our values," Feinstein said in a speech on the Senate floor Tuesday. "Releasing this report is an important step to restore our values and show the world we are in fact a just and lawful society. This program was morally, legally and administratively misguided.
"The CIA program was far more brutal than people were led to believe," she added.
Feinstein, who's not a progressive Democrat by any stretch, did a great service to the country insisting that the report be released �" over the objections of the intelligence community and some Republicans (although the bipartisan committee voted 11-3 some time ago to release it). Another 6,500 pages of the committee's investigation remain classified, but the unclassified summary contains more than enough information to paint a CIA that was out of control. Feinstein had to act now or never, because she will lose her chairmanship when the Republicans take control of the Senate next month. Had the report not been released now, it's likely it never would.
Not surprisingly CIA Director John Brennan conceded missteps but disagreed with the report's findings.
The CIA also claims that its methods produced significant useful intelligence. But the report finds, to the contrary, that almost never turned out to be true. Marc Ambinder, who covers intelligence issues for the Atlantic , noted in a series of tweets that the pattern that emerges was as follows: "Field sites tell HQ prisoner is compliant. HQ insists prisoner must be holding back, so: 'enhance' him. Field complies. No new info."
These tactics went on for years with more than 100 detainees.
Politico posted a list of 13 shocking moments that included a description about how Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was treated.
On the waterboarding used against him, the report states that "According to the attending medical officer, the technique became a 'series of near drownings.'"
"CIA records indicate that KSM was subjected to the waterboard interrogation technique at least 183 times," Politico stated, adding that the report maintains that several CIA personnel, including members on Mohammed's interrogation team, thought the "technique was ineffective."
Sometimes the detainees would make up information after being roughed up.
Overall, the Senate report shows that the U.S. government and its agents treated detainees as horribly as terrorist groups like al Qaeda and the Islamic State treat their hostages. U.S. officials' constant complaint about how prisoners and others are treated by these terror groups, now seem hypocritical and rings hollow for many nations.
President Barack 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."
These CIA operatives and senior Bush administration officials should be prosecuted, but they won't be.
Anthony Romero, the gay executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, proposed an intriguing idea in a New York Times op-ed. He suggested pardoning Bush and the rest, stating that by issuing pardons, there would be accountability for officials' conduct that violated fundamental laws. Oh, and George Tenet, the former CIA director who oversaw so much of this �" he should be forced to return his Presidential Medal of Freedom that Bush presented him before leaving office. There is no one less deserving of the nation's highest civilian honor.