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

Latest Leak From Senate's CIA Torture Report: CIA Tortured Many More People, Hid Details From Everyone

from the getting-worse-and-worse dept

Every few days, more details leak from the Senate's $40 million, 6,300 page report on the CIA's torture program. We'd already heard about how the torture program turned up no useful info and how the CIA lied to Congress about it (pretending information gleaned from other places was obtained via torture, when the truth was it wasn't). We've also heard about how the CIA's torture practices went beyond the (already too high) levels approved by the DOJ and CIA leadership. The folks over at McClatchy have another batch of details, repeating the revelation from last week that the report details how the torture program went beyond its "legal authority" and also detailing how it was used on many more people than the CIA has admitted to in the past:

The report also found that the spy agency failed to keep an accurate account of the number of individuals it held, and that it issued erroneous claims about how many it detained and subjected to the controversial interrogation methods. The CIA has said that about 30 detainees underwent the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques.

The CIA’s claim “is BS,” said a former U.S. official familiar with evidence underpinning the report, who asked not to be identified because the matter is still classified. “They are trying to minimize the damage. They are trying to say it was a very targeted program, but that’s not the case.”

There are also additional details about how CIA officials tried to mislead practically everyone about all of this. Of particular importance was how the CIA misled the Justice Department, which was in charge of determining if the program was legal. The DOJ did, in fact, approve the use of certain "interrogation methods" (which already seemed way too extreme), but it appears the CIA misled the DOJ about what it was actually doing from the very start:

[Defenders of the CIA's torture program] based their defense on a series of top-secret legal opinions issued by the Justice Department beginning in August 2002. At that time, the agency sought advice on whether using the harsh techniques on Zayn al Abidin Muhammad Husayn, a close aide to Osama bin Laden who went by the nom de guerre Abu Zubaydah, would violate U.S. law against torture.

The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel found that the methods wouldn’t breach the law because those applying them didn’t have the specific intent of inflicting severe pain or suffering.

The Senate report, however, concluded that the Justice Department’s legal analyses were based on flawed information provided by the CIA, which prevented a proper evaluation of the program’s legality.

“The CIA repeatedly provided inaccurate information to the Department of Justice, impeding a proper legal analysis of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program,” the report found.

All of this seems consistent with earlier reports, but it's good to see more details coming out. Of course, we're still only seeing bits and pieces, which is why it would be better if the full report were released.

Filed Under: cia, doj, lies, senate report, torture

Dianne Feinstein: Emotions Didn't Motivate The CIA Torture Report; Michael Hayden's Coverup Did

from the oh-snap dept

Senator Dianne Feinstein has finally responded to former CIA and NSA boss Michael Hayden's misogynistic and ridiculous claims that the Senate Intelligence Committee's 6,300 page, $40 million research report into the CIA torture program (run, in part, while Hayden was boss) was motivated by her "emotions" rather than by an objective position. Hayden has also called out the staffers working on the report as sissies (though he'll claim he was just saying the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's acronym -- SSCI). She brushes off the whole "emotional" claim by noting quickly that's Hayden being "stereotypical" and "incorrect" and saying such a thing is "an old male fallback position."

However, as Marcy Wheeler points out, rather than spending her time addressing silly ad hominem attacks, Feinstein scores a lot more points in basically pointing out that the real motivation for the report was Hayden's own lies to Congress: What she notes is that the real inspiration for the report came after it was revealed to the Senate that a CIA staffer had ignored direct requests from Congress, the White House and others in the CIA and destroyed tapes showing the CIA torturing people. The destruction of the tapes was then hidden from Congress for some time as well. When it finally came to light, Hayden (then director of the CIA) told the Senate that it could review various cables and documents, which were "just as good" as the tapes. In looking into that claim from Hayden that the documents were just as useful as the deleted tapes, that the Senate decided to move forward on a full investigation. In other words, it wasn't emotions that motivated Feinstein, it was Hayden's lies to the Senate.

Let me give you how this began. It began in 12/6/07 when the NY Times reported that the CIA destroyed evidence -- namely videotapes. In December, the 11th, Director Hayden appeared before our Committee and said he would allow members and/or staff to review operational cables which he said were just as good. Jay Rockefeller was then the chairman of the Committee. He, on the 7th of February of '08, assigned staff. On February 27th, the staff presented an interim report to the Committee on the destruction of the tapes. The Committee agreed to do a full review of the tapes. On March 5, 2009, the Committee voted 14-1 to do a comprehensive review of the detention and interrogation [program].

Let's have the record crystal clear. I never gave any direction to the staff. I just said 'we want the facts -- and we want those facts footnoted.' The one place I did give some direction, was with respect to the CIA response to the report. I said, 'you will include their response, where appropriate, within the text of the report, and where not appropriate, you will note the response in a footnote to the report.' And that has been carried on.

.... I don't believe Director Hayden has seen the report. I don't believe most people talking about it have actually seen the report. But the genesis of the report was back with the videotapes and back under then Chairman Rockefeller, who assigned staff, staff studied the operational cables, came back, reported to us, we took a look at that and said -- both sides -- we should move ahead and do a full study.

As Wheeler notes: Michael Hayden has only himself to blame for this report. If he hadn't lied and tried to downplay the destruction of evidence of the CIA's torture program, perhaps there would be no torture report at all. No wonder he's so "emotional" and attacking everyone about it.

Filed Under: cia, dianne feinstein, michael hayden, senate, senate report, torture

Former CIA, NSA Boss Says Senator Feinstein Is Too Emotional To Judge CIA Torture Fairly

from the shameful dept

We've written about former NSA and CIA boss Michael Hayden plenty of times around here, and the guy is practically a caricature of what you'd expect him to be. He defends the intelligence community at all costs, and is quick with baseless insults to anyone who disagrees with him, and also (laughably) seems ill-prepared to be a fortune teller. We've also written about California Senator, and head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein, many times as well -- often watching her make similarly ridiculous claims in defense of the intelligence committee. However, as we've seen over the last few months, the one place where she seems to draw the line is with the CIA and its torture program. Feinstein, normally a staunch defender of the intelligence community, has been battling the CIA over the release of the $40 million, 6,300 page report that shows that the CIA's torture program (which she still refuses to call "torture") went way beyond what was authorized, produced no useful intelligence and resulted in the CIA lying to Congress about the program.

Since the two are normally in lock-step on various issues, it's interesting to see what happens when they differ. On Fox News over the weekend, Chris Wallace asked Hayden about the report, and Hayden pretty explicitly tossed out the ridiculous misogynistic argument that Feinstein was, effectively, too emotional to judge whether the report should be released. While he didn't make that claim exactly, he came about as close as possible to saying it without saying it:

WALLACE: But the report says that more prisoners were abused than we had previously known and that the enhanced interrogation produced little intelligence of significance.

HAYDEN: Yes. I read an article by David Ignatius earlier this week. And he said --

WALLACE: He's a columnist for The Washington Post.

HAYDEN: Right. He said that Senator Feinstein wanted a report so scathing that it would ensure that an un-American brutal program of detention interrogation would never again be considered or permitted.

Now, that sentence, that motivation for the report, Chris, may show deep emotional feeling on part of the senator. But I don't think it leads you to an objective report.

WALLACE: I mean, forgive me, because you and I both know Senator Feinstein. I have the highest regard for her. You're saying you think she was emotional in these conclusions?

HAYDEN: What I'm saying is -- first of all, Chris, you're asking me about a report. I have no idea of its content. No one responsible for that report has spoken a word of this to me, to George Tenet, to Porter Goss, to anyone else that is involved in these events. But it's very hard for me to make a judgment.

Of course, as Amy Davidson at the New Yorker notes, while the Ignatius report does suggest this as potential motivation for Feinstein, it's actually taking a Feinstein quote completely out of context. Rather than it being the motivating factor in creating the report, it was actually Feinstein's response to reading the completed report and arguing that its key findings should be made public. That is, rather than being emotionally motivated to create the report (as Hayden falsely claims), Feinstein realized that the report was so damning that it needed to be made public to stop future CIA torture and abuse.

And, really, can anyone explain what's wrong with suggesting that preventing an "un-American, brutal" torture program from happening again would be a beneficial result? Is Hayden honestly arguing that the US should continue with un-American torture efforts?

Either way, the choice of words by Hayden is deliberate and obnoxious. He's suggesting that a female Senator might be too emotionally driven and fragile to understand the "realities" of war, where people like him -- people who apparently sold out their morals long ago -- make important decisions like when and how to violate the Geneva conventions, torture people and to then lie to Congress about it. Call me crazy, but when it comes to stopping a "brutal" and "un-American" program of torturing people in violation of international law, a little emotion might be a good thing.

Filed Under: cia, dianne feinstein, emotions, michael hayden, senate, senate report, torture, torture report

Senate Report Shows CIA Agents Used Torture Techniques Not Approved By DOJ Or CIA

from the but-of-course dept

While the Senate Intelligence Committee has finally started the process of declassifying at least some of the $40 million, 6,300 page report about the CIA's torture efforts, we're getting more and more leaks about what's in the report. Previous leaks showed that the torture program was completely useless and that the CIA simply lied about its effectiveness (in fact, taking information gleaned by others through normal interrogations, and claiming they got it via torture). The latest leak highlights how, despite claims by the CIA's supporters, that the torture was done in "good faith" and was approved by the DOJ and the CIA, it turns out that (of course), that the CIA's torturers actually went much further than they were approved to go.

CIA officers subjected terror suspects it held after the Sept. 11 attacks to methods that were not approved by either the Justice Department or their own headquarters and illegally detained 26 of the 119 in CIA custody, the Senate Intelligence Committee has concluded in its still-secret report, McClatchy has learned.

The spy agency program’s reliance on brutal and harsh techniques _ much more abusive than previously known _ and its failure to gather valuable information from the detainees, harmed the U.S.’s credibility internationally, according to the committee’s findings in its scathing 6,300 page report on the CIA’s interrogation and detention program.

So, again, we have evidence that the CIA tortured people, did so beyond any actual authority (as sketchy as such an authority might be), got nothing of value from the torture, and then repeatedly lied about the torture and the value of it to Congress and the American public. And... no one is going to jail over this. Well, except for the guy who blew the whistle. In fact, many of those responsible for the torture program are still in positions of power. This is a total disgrace.

Filed Under: cia, doj, senate report, torture

Some Senators Finally Willing To Call CIA's Torture Program 'Torture'

from the good-for-them dept

We've been writing quite a bit about the supposedly devastating $40 million, 6,300 page Senate report that exposes the CIA torture program for being useless -- and (perhaps more importantly) describing in detail how the CIA lied about it to everyone, including Congress. There's been something of an ongoing fight about declassifying the document, with the general thinking being that the Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee would likely support declassification, but the Republicans would not. But, as we'd pointed out, despite Intelligence Committee boss Senator Dianne Feinstein's condemnations of the CIA concerning the report, she still couldn't must up the courage to admit that what the CIA was doing was "torture." Instead, it was always the "detention and interrogation program." But, anyone who's looked at it knows exactly what it was: a torture program, almost certainly in violation of the Geneva conventions.

So it's great to see that a Republican Senator (remember, they were supposedly against declassification), Susan Collins, (along with Independent Senator Angus King) not only come out in favor of declassification but to directly call it torture:

We remain strongly opposed to the use of torture, believing that it is fundamentally contrary to American values. While we have some concerns about the process for developing the report, its findings lead us to conclude that some detainees were subjected to techniques that constituted torture. This inhumane and brutal treatment never should have occurred. Further, the report raises serious concerns about the CIA’s management of this program.

[....]

Torture is wrong, and we must make sure that the misconduct and the grave errors made in the CIA’s detention and interrogation program never happen again.

The CIA's torture program is a shameful moment in American history, and as a country, we cannot deal with it by pretending that it was anything other than what it was. We need to make it clear that it was torture and that it was wrong. Those responsible for the program should be held accountable. But they won't. Instead, the only person in jail... is the guy who blew the whistle on it. If we can't even admit that the torture program was a torture program, then we're bound to go down this road again.

Filed Under: angus king, cia, senate report, susan collins, torture