The Exposure Of CIA Torture Is Finally Costing Someone A Job: Former Senate Staffer Alissa Starzak

from the halls-of-power-still-clogged-with-assholes,-apparently dept

Oh, good. As if there was ever any doubt that the exposure of CIA torture was never going to result in anyone involved being held responsible, the current push to knock a former Senate staffer off her career path further confirms the government's preference for shooting messengers.

Alissa Starzak, a former Democratic majority staffer on the Senate Intelligence Committee, played a critical and controversial role during her time on the panel: She was a lead investigator for the torture report, and was one of two staffers involved in an ongoing feud over damning internal CIA documents obtained by the committee.

Currently serving as deputy general counsel for the Defense Department, Starzak was nominated last July to serve as general counsel to the Army.

But the critics of the torture investigation -- namely, Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Richard Burr (R-N.C.) -- are orchestrating a quiet campaign to stall Starzak's nomination.

Burr confirmed to The Huffington Post that he is working to keep the former investigator from getting approved by the Senate.

This would be the same Richard Burr who ridiculously demanded everyone in possession of the full, unredacted CIA Torture Report return their copies immediately, presumably so he could memory-hole the damning documents as quickly as possible.

So, while everyone else involved walks away with their careers pretty much intact -- and covered by the president's mawkishly-worded admission that "we tortured some folks" -- Starzak will be about the only person to emerge from this horrific debacle with her options limited.

The Senate Intelligence Committee is divided against itself. Feinstein tackled the CIA's torture programs, facing down fellow committee members while doing so. Since Burr can't hang Feinstein -- largely because she's still a very hawkish on NSA surveillance -- he's just going to fit Starzak with a noose and hang Feinstein in effigy.

Starzak wasn't involved with the torture review for long, leaving Feinstein's staff for a job with the Department of Defense in 2011, but she managed to secure a key document that served as a touchstone for future Senate investigative work. While digging through the documents the CIA allowed the Senate to access on its computers in the agency's basement, she came across the files later known as the "Panetta Review." At the time (2010), they seemed unimportant. It wasn't until the CIA began defending itself against claims made in review drafts that Senate staffers realized how instrumental this file was.

It was in June 2013 that the CIA, now under the leadership of John Brennan, sent the committee its official response to the completed torture study. The agency largely defended its use of torture -- in stark contrast with what the Panetta Review said -- which tipped Senate staffers off to the document’s importance.

After the CIA issued its response, Senate investigators sat through dozens of hours of meetings with agency staff in an effort to resolve the discrepancies between the official CIA line and the Senate’s findings. But those meetings yielded little. Newly aware of the relevance of the Panetta Review -- as it backed their findings and undermined the agency’s official response -- staffers slipped the document back to their secure committee spaces sometime in late 2013.

This move led to CIA claims that the Senate had improperly accessed documents… which led to the Senate accusing the CIA of spying on staffers. This finally resulted in CIA opening its own investigation into the Senate allegations and (of course) clearing itself of any wrongdoing, while raising new accusations about Senate staffers' improper access.

So, while CIA, DOJ and administration officials are free to duck questions about their involvement in the approval (either explicit or tacit) of the CIA's torture programs, Burr and others are holding Starzak's future hostage until she answers for this supposed improper behavior.

Critics are now holding up Starzak’s nomination -- and say they are willing to kill it entirely if need be -- to get more answers about the Panetta Review. Specifically, they say, they want the committee’s Democratic staffers to provide more information about how the file was discovered in 2010 and how, in late 2013, staffers slipped the printed documents back to the committee’s secure office spaces, in apparent violation of an agreement with the agency.

“Clearly it looks like … [she] knew that this document existed, knew that people were reading it and as a counsel didn’t try to keep people from doing it,” the lawmaker familiar with the controversy said. “[I want] information that fills in the blanks of what happened. And she clearly knows something.”

It's nothing but thug tactics, wrapped in the faux concern for an intelligence agency's operational security. Burr is irritated that Senate staffers didn't play by the CIA's self-serving ruleset -- not because rules mean much to him, but because it resulted in the exposure of truly vile behavior from officials and operatives Burr routinely defends. And he's willing to let the record show that he prefers punishing those who expose torture to punishing the torturers themselves.

Filed Under: alissa starzak, cia, cia torture, dianne feinstein, panetta review, richard burr, senate, senate intelligence committee, torture report

FBI Hasn't Read Full Torture Report; Says There's Nothing To Learn From It

from the ALL-KNOWLEDGE-OBTAINED dept

The FBI is pretty much a rogue agency at this point, at least if the DOJ's Office of the Inspector General's growing concerns about stonewalled investigations and improperly withheld documents are any indication. But there's one government agency it considers too ill-behaved to associate with: the CIA.

The FBI and CIA have strained history over the Bush administration’s War on Terror torture program. According to a 2007 LA Times report, former FBI Director Robert Mueller, upon learning of the CIA’s illegal tactics, pulled his agents back from even playing a supporting role to the agency. One senior official at the bureau was quoted as saying, “the CIA determined they were going to torture people, and we made the decision not to be involved.”

Mueller himself, reportedly, wanted to save his agents from “legal jeopardy,” by prohibiting them from participating in the tactics.

The CIA was nonplussed by its rebuffed advances. Its director of public affairs responded with an eloquent "bullshit" to the FBI's decision to stay uninvolved in the agency's enhanced interrogation games. That backdrop sets the stage for FBI Director James Comey's response to Dianne Feinstein, when she interrupted a federal law enforcement budget hearing to ask why the Torture Report she put six years into hadn't been touched by the agency.

“The fact that it hasn’t been opened, at least that’s what’s been reported to me, is really a great disservice,” she added. “The report contains numerous examples of a learning experience: of cases, of interrogation of where the department could learn, perhaps, some new things from past mistakes.”

Comey didn’t deny that the report is gathering dust in a locker somewhere at the J. Edgar Hoover building.

“I don’t know enough about where the document sits at this point in time,” he told Senators.

Hardly surprising, considering the FBI's parent agency -- the DOJ -- can't seem to recall whether any officials there have read it or not. When speaking to the New York Times about the decision to not bring charges against CIA officials and personnel, the DOJ said it had read the whole thing. When withholding information from a FOIA requester, it told the court the full report hadn't even been unsealed from its package, much less read.

Comey at least admitted up front that no one at the FBI has looked at the full report. And at least Comey managed to make it through the executive summary -- something other CIA defenders hadn't even done before taking to the airwaves to contend the agency did nothing wrong.

Comey's excuse, however, is wanting.

“What we have not done is thought about whether there are lessons learned for us,” Comey admitted, noting that there’s a tendency for him to think there’s little the FBI can learn from the report since they don’t engage in those types of interrogation.

Whether or not there are direct lessons is something only Comey can attest to. But there are certainly plenty of cautionary, indirect lessons to be learned. Even if it fails to translate across agencies, there's no reason for Comey or other FBI officials to be only as informed as the American public. If they have the access, they should use it, if only to confirm the agency made the right decision to steer clear of the CIA's torture programs.

The agency may also use it as a learning moment and ask why -- if it had seen enough disturbing CIA behavior to scare it away -- it did nothing about the abuses it witnessed. And then it can ask itself why -- when it uncovered civil liberty abuses by the NYPD's now-defunct Demographics Unit (led by a former CIA official) extensive enough to prompt its refusal to partake in collected evidence -- it did not report this to the DOJ, which had the power to step in and stop it.

The FBI takes a dim view of public accountability, judging from its constant thwarting of its internal oversight. Apparently, it feels it's in no position to demand accountability from others.

Filed Under: cia, cia torture, dianne feinstein, doj, fbi, senate intelligence committee, torture report

How The CIA's Torture Program Is Destroying The Key Foreign Power The US Had: The Moral High Ground

from the depressing dept

Over a year ago, we wrote about a wonderful piece in Foreign Affairs by Henry Farrell and Martha Finnemore, noting that the real "danger" of the Snowden and Manning revelations was that it effectively killed off the US's ability to use hypocrisy as a policy tool. Here was the key bit (though the whole article is worth reading):

The deeper threat that leakers such as Manning and Snowden pose is more subtle than a direct assault on U.S. national security: they undermine Washington’s ability to act hypocritically and get away with it. Their danger lies not in the new information that they reveal but in the documented confirmation they provide of what the United States is actually doing and why. When these deeds turn out to clash with the government’s public rhetoric, as they so often do, it becomes harder for U.S. allies to overlook Washington’s covert behavior and easier for U.S. adversaries to justify their own.

Few U.S. officials think of their ability to act hypocritically as a key strategic resource. Indeed, one of the reasons American hypocrisy is so effective is that it stems from sincerity: most U.S. politicians do not recognize just how two-faced their country is. Yet as the United States finds itself less able to deny the gaps between its actions and its words, it will face increasingly difficult choices -- and may ultimately be compelled to start practicing what it preaches.

The argument that Farrell and Finnemore made was that the revelations that came about because of the whistleblowing by Snowden and Manning made it such that this hypocrisy didn't function as well, because it made it much easier for others to simply call bullshit.

Now, a new article at Foreign Policy, by Kristin Lord, takes this argument even further, by looking at the CIA torture program and how it has totally undermined America's "soft power" in diplomacy. Lord, thankfully, makes it quite clear that the problem here is the CIA's program and not (as some have tried to argue) the release of the report about the program:

But the fault lies not with those who released the report, as some critics argue, but with those who permitted and perpetrated acts of torture, those who lied about it to America’s elected representatives, and those who willfully kept the president and senior members of the Bush administration in the dark. Their actions undermined not only American values, but also American influence and national security interests. In the words of a former prisoner of war, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the actions laid out in the Senate report “stained our national honor” and “did much harm and little practical good.”

But the key point of Lord's article, like the earlier one by Farrell and Finnemore, is that the US has long relied on its "soft power strategy" of convincing others to do things because it's "the right thing to do." The US has long presented itself as holding a higher moral ground. However, as Lord points out, the soft power the US uses goes beyond just the moral high ground:

While morality is a normative system of values and principles that guides just behavior, soft power is ultimately about influence. As Joseph Nye, the former dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, has argued, there are many different ways to affect the behavior of others. One can coerce with threats. One can induce with incentives. Or one can exercise the power of attraction, co-opting others who want the same things you want through the legitimacy of your policies and the values upon which they’re founded. The latter is called soft power.

Moral authority facilitates soft power, but so do relationships, shared values, and interlinking interests. Given the ideological component of so many of the national security threats that face the United States going forward — and the inability of any one country to meet them alone — soft power can be an important part of the strategy to address these threats. But Americans will need to cultivate it.

As the article makes clear, it seems like US leaders don't seem to recognize just how important the US's "soft power" is -- and how fragile it might be in the wake of the revelations of the past couple of years. What Farrell and Finnemore described as the power of American hypocrisy is becoming increasingly clear, making it an increasingly less effective diplomatic tool. And others are seizing on this.

Lord's piece then goes into a detailed explanation of what the US needs to do if it wishes to continue exercising "soft power" to influence the world. And part of that is recognizing just how badly the US has screwed up over the past decade and a half (mostly in response to 9/11):

First, it has to “walk the walk,” aligning actions and values, rhetoric and deeds. This is understandably difficult in a country with complex and wide-ranging foreign policy interests, but the United States could do better in one key respect: weighing potential damage to America’s moral authority when considering policy options. Such considerations are often trumped, and not without cause. Policymakers are regularly forced to choose from a series of bad options, and when they do, clear and short-term consequences weigh more heavily than diffuse costs to notions like reputation. If the United States is serious about countering challenges to its national security interests and democratic ideals, however, this must change. Perceptions that the United States does not live up to its own values fundamentally undermine American power and inhibit the country’s ability to defend not just its own interests, but also universal standards of what is right and just. They undermine America’s ability to defend the time-proven value of the moral high ground, and they empower cynical actors eager to seize the propaganda advantage.

Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be happening. Rather than using the release of the Snowden documents or the CIA terror report as a true chance to reflect, to admit where things went wrong, and to show a real commitment to doing better in the future and being transparent about it, it has instead resulted in typical partisan bickering, ridiculous and counterproductive defenses of harmful surveillance and torture, and very little actual introspection. It is this response that only helps perpetuate the continuing and rapid deflation of any moral high ground that the US had to stand on.

The basic stated values of the US are something worth spreading and perpetuating. But the only way you can legitimately do that is to admit when the country has strayed from those values, and that means a true and honest accounting of where things went wrong, along with a transparent and concrete plan for dealing with those failings and making sure they don't happen again. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be happening, and many in power don't seem to understand the damages this is doing to the US's power around the globe.

Filed Under: cia, cia torture, diplomacy, hypocrisy, moral high ground, soft power, torture

Profiting Massively From Torture: Designers Of CIA Torture Program Raked In $81 Million (And Are Still Getting Money)

from the how-do-they-sleep-at-night? dept

There are so many incredible things in the CIA Torture Report that will be discussed and analyzed over the next few weeks and months. But one that stands out to me is that the architects of the torture program were not only wholly unqualified to design it, but they profited massively from the program, to the tune of at least $81 million. And that number may go up, as they also are getting paid by the government for any legal issues related to the program, including over $1 million for legal fees associated with responding to the Senate Intelligence Committee investigation that resulted in this report.

The report uses pseudonyms for the two psychologists: Grayson Swigert and Hammond Dunbar. However, their names were actually revealed back in 2007: James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen. To say they were unqualified for the work of designing the torture program would be an understatement. While they were psychologists with the US Air Force's "Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape" (SERE) program (which is supposed to help train US military personnel in case they're captured), you'd think they'd actually have some relevant background with terrorism and/or interrogation. But, nope:

Neither psychologist had experience as an interrogator, nor did either have specialized knowledge of al- Qa'ida, a background in terrorism, or any relevant regional, cultural, or linguistic expertise. SWIGERT had reviewed research on "learned helplessness," in which individuals might become passive and depressed in response to adverse or uncontrollable events. He theorized that inducing such a state could encourage a detainee to cooperate and provide information.

Instead, their only real experience with interrogation was in reading reports on how to resist the kind of torture programs used by those who failed to follow the Geneva Conventions. Their limited experience with interrogation revolved almost entirely on pure torture programs that did not follow the Geneva Conventions:

SERE training is intended to be used to teach our soldiers how to resist interrogation by enemies that refuse to follow the Geneva Conventions and international law. In SERE school, our troops who are at risk of capture are exposed in a controlled environment with great protections and caution -- to techniques adapted from abusive tactics used against American soldiers by enemies such as the Communist Chinese during the Korean War. SERE training techniques include stress positions, forced nudity, use of fear, sleep deprivation and, until recently, the Navy SERE school used the waterboard. These techniques were designed to give our students a taste of what they might be subjected to if captured by a ruthless, lawless enemy so that they would be better prepared to resist. The techniques were never intended to be used against detainees in U.S. custody.

In other words, their knowledge of interrogation came solely from knowing a little about torture programs used by countries who didn't follow the Geneva Conventions, and their role had been to try to help US soldiers resist such techniques should they come up. Instead, they turned it around and told the CIA to do almost everything that they flat out knew were torture programs in violation of the Geneva Conventions.

The psychologists -- initially led by the pseudonymous "Swigert" -- were the key to initially torturing Abu Zubadayah. According to the report, the CIA initially planned to see if Zubadayah would provide information through more standard interrogation techniques, leaving a "hard approach... only as a last resort." In discussing this, someone suggested bringing in Swigert for help -- and almost immediately the plans changed.

Shortly thereafter, CIA Headquarters formally proposed that Abu Zubaydah be kept in an all-white room that was lit 24 hours a day, that Abu Zubaydah not be provided any amenities, that his sleep be disrupted, that loud noise be constantly fed into his cell, and that only a small number of people interact with him. CIA records indicate that these proposals were based on the idea that such conditions would lead Abu Zubaydah to develop a sense of "learned helplessness. CIA Headquarters then sent an interrogation team to Country [X], including SWIGERT, whose initial role was to consult on the psychological aspects of the interrogation.

Remember, Swigert had apparently recently reviewed some "research" on "learned helplessness," and suddenly the CIA's interrogation plan changed. An FBI message at the time shows exasperation over this, noting that the FBI's more traditional interrogation techniques had been working in getting relevant information, but as soon as the CIA's chosen psychologists showed up, they went straight to torture, and blocked the FBI out of the process. Here's part of an FBI agent's message back to FBI headquarters:

"AZ's health has improved over the last two days and Agency[CIA]is ready to move [Abu Zubaydah] out of the hospital and back toUH^^Ion in an elaborate plan to change AZ's environment. Agency [CIA] advised this day that they will be immediately changing tactics in all future AZ interviews by having only there [sic] [CIA officer] interact with AZ (there will be no FBI presence in interview room). This change contradicts all conversations had to date.... They believe AZ is offering, 'throw away information' and holding back from providing threat information (It should be note [sic] that we have obtained critical information regarding AZ thus far and have now got him speaking about threat information, albeit from his hospital bed and not [an] appropriate interview environment for full follow-up (due to his health). Suddenly the psychiatric team here wants AZ to only interact with their [CIA officer, and the CIA sees this] as being the best way to get the threat information.... We offered several compromise solutions... all suggestions were immediately declined without further discussion. .. .This again is quite odd as all information obtained from AZ has come from FBI lead interviewers and questioning.... I have spent an un-calculable amount of hours at [Abu Zubaydah's] bedside assisting with medical help, holding his hand and comforting hum through various medical procedures, even assisting him in going [to] the batliroom.... We have built tremendous report [sic] with AZ and now that we are on the eve of 'regular'' interviews to get threat information, we have been 'written out' of future interviews.

That was just the beginning. "Swigert" became a key cog in pushing for ever greater torture techniques:

In early July 2002, CIA officers held several meetings at CIA Headquarters to discuss the possible use of "novel interrogation methods" on Abu Zubaydah.'" During the course of those meetings SWIGERT proposed using techniques derived from the U.S. military's SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape) school. SWIGERT provided a list of 12 SERE techniques for possible use by the CIA: (1) the attention grasp, (2) walling, (3) facial hold, (4) facial slap, (5) cramped confinement, (6) wall standing, (7) stress positions, (8) sleep deprivation, (9) waterboard, (10) use of diapers, (11) use of insects, and (12) mock burial. SWIGERT also recommended that the CIA enter into a contract with Hammond DUNBAR, his co-author of the CIA report on potential al-Qa'ida interrogation resistance training, to aid in the CIA interrogation process. Like SWIGERT, DUNBAR had never participated in a real-world interrogation. His interrogation experience was limited to the paper he authored with SWIGERT and his work with U.S. Air Force personnel at the SERE school.

You'd think that this sort of lack of experience would be a concern. But, to the CIA, apparently, it was seen as an advantage. A footnote quoting the CIA's response discusses this:

Drs. [SWIGERT] and [DUNBAR] had the closest proximate expertise CIA sought at the beginning of the program, specifically in the area of non-standard means of interrogation. Experts on traditional interrogation methods did not meet this requirement. Non-standard interrogation methodologies were not an area of expertise of CIA officers or of the US Government generally. We believe their expertise was so unique that we would have been derelict had we not sought them out when it became clear that CIA would be heading into the uncharted territory of the program.

The Senate report points follows this up by pointing out that these psychologists were the key to convincing the CIA to adopt the ruthless torture plans:

As noted above, the CIA did not seek out SWIGERT and DUNBAR after a decision was made to use coercive interrogation techniques; rather,SWIGERT and DUNBAR played a role in convincing the CIA to adopt such a policy.

In fact, it soon reached the point at which the only people allowed to have contact with Abu Zubadayah were... Swigert and Dunbar, the two psychologists who (remember) had no experience with interrogations and little to no background on Al'Qaeda.

On August 3, 2002, CIA Headquarters informed the interrogation team at DETENTION SITE GREEN that it had formal approval to apply the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques, including the waterboard, against Abu Zubaydah. According to CIA records, only the two CIA contractors, SWIGERT and DUNBAR, were to have contact with Abu Zubaydah. Other CIA personnel at DETENTION SITE GREEN - including CIA medical personnel and other CIA "interrogators with whom he is familiar" - were only to observe.

The report notes, not surprisingly, that this plan to torture Abu Zubadayah produced no useful intelligence (not that it would be okay if it had... but just pointing it out). However, the CIA then let the two psychologists review the success of the program themselves. Guess what they found?

As noted, CIA records indicate that Abu Zubaydah never provided the information for which the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques were justified and approved.... Nonetheless, CIA Headquarters informed the National Security Council that the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques used against Abu Zubaydah were effective and were "producing meaningful results." A cable from DETENTION SITE GREEN, which CIA records indicate was authored by SWIGERT and DUNBAR, also viewed the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah as a success. The cable recommended that "the aggressive phase at [DETENTION SITE GREEN] should be used as a template for future interrogation of high value captives," not because the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques produced useful information, but rather because their use confirmed that Abu Zubaydah did not possess the intelligence that CIA Headquarters had assessed Abu Zubaydah to have.

Got that? They said it was a success because the torture turned up nothing of value, and thus it proved he had no valuable information to provide. Thus, it should become the model for "future interrogations." And it did. The same cable, again, authored by those two psychologists, set themselves up to continue being torturers-for-hire:

The cable further recommended that psychologists—a likely reference to contractors SWIGERT and DUNBAR— "familiar with interrogation, exploitation and resistance to interrogation should shape compliance of high value captives prior to debriefing by substantive experts."

And, indeed, they were used again. And again.

As late as June 2003, SWIGERT and DUNBAR, operating outside of the direct management of the Renditions Group, were deployed to DETENTION SITE BLUE to both interrogate and conduct psychological reviews of detainees.

This was just the beginning, but once they were in, they were in. Despite a few attempts by some in the CIA to raise concerns about these two, they became the go to guys for both torture techniques and in evaluating those very same torture techniques. And they made a shitload of money.

CIA contractors SWIGERT and DUNBAR, who played a central role in the development of the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques in the summer of 2002, and then used the techniques as contract interrogators, formed a company in 2005 [Company Y]. In addition to providing interrogators for the CIA's interrogation program, Company Y was granted a sole source contract to provide operational psychologists, debriefers, and security personnel at CIA detention sites. Under the contract. Company Y was tasked with conducting ongoing conversations with CIA detainees to learn about the terrorist mind set (this project was named the "Terrorist Think Tank" or "T³"), developing [REDACTED] strategies, and writing the history of the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program. Later descriptions of their services note that—on behalf of the CIA—Company Y officers participated in the interrogations of detainees held in foreign government custody and served as intermediaries between entities of those governments and the CIA.

By 2006, the value of the base contract for their company, with all options exercised, was in excess of $180 million. As of May 2007, Company Y had hired [X] former CIA staff officers, many of whom had previously been involved with the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program....

The CIA's contract with Company Y was terminated in mid-2009. From the time of the company's creation in 2005 through the close-out of its contract in 2010, the CIA paid Company Y more than $75 million for services in conjunction with the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program.... In 2008, the CIA authorized an additional payment to Company Y of approximately $570,000, after Company Y indicated that it had incurred costs for conducting countersurveillance of its officers when appeared in the press in conjunction with the program. The CIA agreed to a $5 million indemnification contract for the company that covered, among other expenses, criminal prosecution. Company Y hired a prominent [REDACTED] law firm for representation in 2007, and billed the CIA $1.1 million for legal expenses from 2007 through 2012 per its indemnification agreement. Part of these expenses included legal presentation at a Committee staff briefing by SWIGERT and DUNBAR on November [XX], 2008. Under the CIA's indemnification contract, the CIA is obligated to pay Company Y's legal expenses through 2021.

Torture sure is profitable.

Reading the details of the report, it certainly feels like James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen deserve a place in history alongside other infamous torturers. And yet, instead, they're free and have banked many millions of dollars -- and Mitchell now spends his retirement kayaking in Florida. It's downright sickening.

Filed Under: bruce jessen, cia, cia torture, grayson swigert, hammond dunbar, james mitchell, money, profits, sere, torture, torture report

Former CIA Director Hayden: We Didn't Lie About Interrogation Program. Torture Report: Yeah, You Did. REPEATEDLY.

from the I-swear-I-thought-you'd-never-find-out! dept

Former CIA director Michael Hayden warned anyone who would listen that the release of the Torture Report would turn our enemies against us… or further against us, or something. He also claimed that he and the CIA had been generally forthright and open about this program over the past several years.

"To say that we relentlessly, over an expanded period of time, lied to everyone about a program that wasn't doing any good, that beggars the imagination," Hayden said on CBS's "Face the Nation."

Well... Prepare to have your imaginations beggared! Here's Michael Hayden's relentless lies, told over an expanded period of time, about a program that wasn't doing any good, as documented in the Senate Committee's report. [pdf link]

Briefings to the full Committee beginning on September 6, 2006, also contained numerous inaccuracies, including inaccurate descriptions of how interrogation techniques were applied and what information was obtained from CIA detainees. The CIA misrepresented the views of members of Congress on a number of occasions. After multiple senators had been critical of the program and written letters expressing concerns to CIA Director Michael Hayden, Director Hayden nonetheless told a meeting of foreign ambassadors to the United States that every Committee member was "fully briefed," and that "[t]his is not CIA's program. This is not the President's program. This is America's program." The CIA also provided inaccurate information describing the views of U.S. senators about the program to the Department of Justice.

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A February 2007 report from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which the CIA acting general counsel initially stated "actually does not sound that far removed from the reality" was also criticized. CIA officers prepared documents indicating that "critical portions of the Report are patently false or misleading, especially certain key factual claims. CIA Director Hayden testified to the Committee that "numerous false allegations of physical and threatened abuse and faulty legal assumptions and analysis in the [ICRC] report undermine its overall credibility.'"

Hayden's claim of "faulty assumptions" sounds familiar. Here's his opening salvo from a Wall Street Journal editorial in defense of the program.

The committee has given us instead a one-sided study marred by errors of fact and interpretation—essentially a poorly done and partisan attack on the agency that has done the most to protect America after the 9/11 attacks.

Nice touch, the "partisan" thing. Distracts people from the real issue. (See also: the abysmal comment section following the editorial.) Back to Hayden's inaccuracies.

In December 2003, a CIA Station overseeing CIA detention operations in Country [x] informed CIA Headquarters that it had made the "unsettling discovery" that the CIA was "holding a number of detainees about whom" it knew "very little," Nearly five years later, in late 2008, the CIA attempted to determine how many individuals the CIA had detained. At the completion of the review, CIA leaders, including CIA Director Michael Hayden, were informed that the review found that the CIA had detained at least 112 individuals, and possibly more.

CIA Director Hayden typically described the program as holding "fewer than a hundred" detainees. For example, in testimony before the Committee on February 4, 2008, in response to a question from Chairman Rockefeller during an open hearing, Hayden stated, "[i]n the life of the CIA detention program we have held fewer than a hundred people." {See DTS #2008-1140.) Specific references to "98" detainees were included in a May 5, 2006, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) report on Renditions, Detentions and Interrogations.

To Michael Hayden, this margin of error was acceptable.

According to tlie CIA's June 2013 Response, "Hayden did not view the discrepancy, if it existed, as particularly significant given that, if true, it would increase the total number by just over 10 percent."

Even so, he then directed a CIA officer to alter reality to match his well-worn claim of 98 detainees

According to an email summarizing the meeting, CIA Director Hayden instructed a CIA officer to devise a way to keep the number of CIA detainees at the same number the CIA had previously briefed to Congress. The email, which the briefer sent only to himself, stated:

"I briefed the additional CIA detainees that could be included in RDI numbers. DCIA instructed me to keep the detainee number at 98 ~ pick whatever date i [sic] needed to make that happen but the number is 98."

Moving on...

Contrary to statements later made by CIA Director Michael Hayden and other CIA officials that "[a]ll those involved in the questioning of detainees are carefully chosen and screened for demonstrated professional judgment and maturity, CIA records suggest that the vetting sought by [redacted] did not take place.

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In testimony on April 12, 2007, CIA Director Michael Hayden referenced medical care of detainees in the context of the ICRC report on CIA detentions. Hayden testified to the Committee; "The medical section of the ICRC report concludes that the association of CIA medical officers with the interrogation program is 'contrary to international standards of medical ethics.' That is just wrong. The role of CIA medical officers in the detainee program is and always has been and always will be to ensure the safety and the well-being of the detainee. The placement of medical officers during the interrogation techniques represents an extra measure of caution. Our medical officers do not recommend the employment or continuation of any procedures or techniques. The allegation in the report that a CIA medical officer threatened a detainee, stating that medical care was conditional on cooperation is blatantly false. Healthcare has always been administered based upon detainee needs. It's neither policy nor practice to link medical care to any other aspect of the detainee program." This testimony was incongruent with CIA records.

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CIA Director Hayden prepared a statement that relayed, "despite what you have heard or read in a variety of public fora, these [enhanced interrogation] techniques and this program did work." The prepared materials included inaccurate information on the operation and management of the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program, as well as the same set of examples of the "effectiveness" of the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques that the CIA had provided to policymakers over several years. The examples provided were nearly entirely inaccurate.

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Similarly, CIA Director Michael Hayden represented to the Committee on April 12, 2007, that "KSM also provided the first lead to an operative known as 'Issa al-Hindi,' with other detainees giving additional identifying information." The CIA provided similar inaccurate representations regarding the thwarting of the United Kingdom Urban Targets Plot and the identification and/or arrest of Dhiren Barot, aka Abu Issa al-Hindi, in 17 of the 20 documents provided to policymakers and the Department of Justice between July 2003 and March 2009.

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The CIA represented that CIA detainee Abu Zubaydah provided "important" and "vital" information by identifying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) as the mastermind behind the attacks of September 11, 2001 CIA Director Hayden told the Committee on April 12, 2007, that:

"..it was Abu Zubaydah, early in his detention, who identified KSM as the mastermind of 9/11. Until that time, KSM did not even appear in our chart of key al-Qa'ida members and associates."

On at least two prominent occasions, the CIA represented, inaccurately, that Abu Zubaydah provided this information after the use of the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques.

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On November 16, 2006, CIA Director Hayden briefed the Committee. The briefing included inaccurate information, including on the CIA's use of dietary manipulation and nudity, as well as the effects of sleep deprivation.

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Director Hayden testified that detainees were never provided fewer than 1,000 calories a day. This is inaccurate. There were no calorie requirements until May 2004, and draft OMS guidelines from March 2003 indicated that "[b]rief periods in which food is withheld(1-2 days), as an adjunct to interrogations are acceptable."

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Director Hayden testified that detainees were "not paraded [nude] in front of anyone," whereas a CIA interrogator told the inspector general that nude detainees were "kept a center area outside the interrogation room," and were "'walked around' by guards.'"

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February 14, 2007, during a hearing on CIA renditions, Director Hayden provided inaccurate information to the Committee, to include inaccurate information on the number of detainees held by the CIA.

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At the April 12, 2007, hearing, Director Hayden verbally provided extensive inaccurate information on, among other topics: (1) the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, (2) the application of Department of Defense survival school practices to the program, (3) detainees' counter-interrogation training, (4) the backgrounds of CIA interrogators, (5) the role of other members of the interrogation teams, (6) the number of CIA detainees and their intelligence production, (7) the role of CIA detainee reporting in the captures of terrorist suspects, (8) the interrogation process, (9) the use of detainee reporting, (10) the purported relationship between Islam and the need to use the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques, (11) threats against detainees' families, (12) the punching and kicking of detainees, (13) detainee hygiene, (14) denial of medical care, (15) dietary manipulation, (16) the use of waterboarding and its effectiveness, and (17) the injury and death of detainees.

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At the CIA briefing to the Committee on December 11, 2007, Director Hayden testified about: (1) the information provided to the White House regarding the videotapes, (2) what the tapes revealed, (3) what was not on the tapes, (4) the reasons for their destruction, (5) the legal basis for the use of the waterboard, and (6) the effectiveness of the CIA's waterboard interrogation technique. Much of this testimony was inaccurate or incomplete.

This certainly seems like the record of relentless lying over a period of several years, contrary to Hayden's assertions. There are a few ways of viewing this, none of which cast Hayden in a flattering light. Given the comprehensive detailing of his inaccurate statements delivered as the director of the CIA, you have to assume he's either a) a liar or b) incompetent. Even if he lied to (in his mind) protect America, he still lied. Given other statements he's made about the supposed value of the program, the pendulum swings towards "liar."

He lied to protect a program he thought was valuable, even when the CIA's own documents and findings contradicted this belief. The pendulum swings toward "incompetent," but doesn't quite make it that far. There's far too much calculation lying below the obfuscation to believe Hayden didn't know exactly what he was doing when he spent briefing after briefing and hearing after hearing lying to his overseers about the extent of the program and the hideous details he was actively hiding from them.

It would almost seem as though Hayden's concerns about the safety of the country are simply a projection of his concerns about what the report reveals about him. This is the guy who wants the public to believe the CIA was screwed by a partisan hatchet job and that domestic surveillance programs are every bit as necessary as torture when it comes to hunting down terrorists. But his own words and actions show he shouldn't be trusted with an op-ed, much less the safety of American people.

Filed Under: cia, cia torture, lies, michael hayden, torture report

Ridiculous: John Kerry Asks Dianne Feinstein Not To Release CIA Torture Report After Agreement Was Reached To Release On Monday

from the paging-mark-udall dept

Okay, this is just getting ridiculous. We've written plenty about the Senate Intelligence Committee's massive $40 million, 6,000 page torture report, detailing a variety of failures related to the CIA's torture program after 9/11. While the Committee voted (overwhelmingly) to release a redacted 480 page executive summary of the document, and the White House insisted it wanted to do so as well, since then it's become clear that the White House was going to do everything to block it from actually getting out.

Yesterday it came out that an agreement had finally been reached on the redactions and that it would finally be released on Monday. Apparently, the CIA/White House won the battle over the question of redacting pseudonyms -- which was a key fight. Basically, those who have seen the report say that if you redact the pseudonyms, important parts of what happened are greatly distorted (such as who is doing what). But apparently, that's what was agreed to anyway.

However, after everyone started gearing up for the release on Monday, Secretary of State John Kerry apparently called Senator Dianne Feinstein to argue that she should "delay" the release of the report, claiming that the timing is "sensitive" and that the US is worried it may mess up a variety of things:

“What he raised was timing of report release, because a lot is going on in the world -- including parts of the world particularly implicated -- and wanting to make sure foreign policy implications were being appropriately factored into timing,” an administration official told me. "He had a responsibility to do so because this isn’t just an intel issue -- it’s a foreign policy issue."

To put it simply, this is a complete bullshit argument. There's always going to be "a lot going on in the world" especially in areas who are going to be upset by the report. There's never going to be a "good" time to release a report that details just how screwed up the CIA's torture program is -- but it's the only way to actually start the process of making things right and making sure that we, as a country don't do that kind of thing again.

In fact, if the government is so damn concerned about the reaction to the release of the report, here's an idea: don't let the government do stuff that leads to a report that will create such a reaction!

Furthermore, the argument that a "delay" is necessary makes no sense either. Beyond the fact that there's always something going on in the world, in this case, they've known that this report was coming for months. To argue they haven't had enough time to prepare is clearly bogus. Back in April the State Department was whining about this as well, but now it's had months to prepare and it's still whining?

Finally, the claims by the State Department that it's just asking for a delay, rather than to shelve the whole report ring hollow. One of the reasons that it's coming out next week is because, after that, the Republicans are back in control, and they've indicated that they'll bury the report entirely. At this point, if Feinstein gives in to Kerry, it seems like the only viable option for getting the report out to the world is to have outgoing Senator Mark Udall release it himself on the floor of the Senate.

Filed Under: cia, cia torture, dianne feinstein, john kerry, mark udall, state department, torture report

Don't Expect To See The Declassified Senate Report On How The CIA Tortured People Any Time Soon

from the of-course-not dept

Sure, the Senate voted to declassify parts of its $40 million, 6,300-page report on the disastrous CIA torture program -- and the White House said that it'll let the CIA handle the declassification. We knew that it would take some time to do the declassification, and expect that "some time" to turn into "a very, very long time."

The procedure, however, likely will take months, several experts said. That’s because it’s complex and time-consuming. Not only does the CIA have to review information that came from its archives, but other U.S. intelligence agencies as well as the Pentagon and the State Department have to evaluate material that they provided, they said.

Of course, as that report notes, plenty of people note that key parts can be declassified quickly -- but likely won't.

The CIA “could demonstrate good faith by releasing the least problematic portions of the text, like the introduction, conclusions and high-level findings. But they’re not doing that and that strikes me as at least bordering on bad faith,” said Steven Aftergood, who runs the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy. “Why does the entire volume need to be held hostage to the most difficult piece of information?”

Meanwhile, some in the Senate are reasonably worried about how the CIA is going to handle this process:

Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has urged the White House to wrest control of the declassification process from the CIA and is demanding rapid action. But, in an interview, she said she has received little feedback from the Obama administration and seemed resigned to a lengthy timetable.

“I would hope that it would be short and quick,” said Feinstein. “That may be a vain [effort].”

And, others are pointing out that it's silly to argue that the CIA needs a whole lot of time, seeing as it's had this report for a long time:

“I’ll start to get impatient in about two weeks,” said Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who caucuses with Democrats. “The CIA’s had this report for a year now. So they ought to know. It’s not like, ‘Oh, we’re just seeing it for the first time.’”

Either way, don't expect to see anything for a while.

Filed Under: cia, cia torture, declassification, report, senate, senate intelligence committee, senate report, torture