The CIA Torture Thread

[Mike]

Senator Ron Wyden is apparently getting tired of waiting for the White House to use up its buckets of black ink in redacting everything important in the Senate's big torture report. He's publicly pondering the idea of using Senate privilege to just release it himself.

As you may recall, the Senate Intelligence Committee spent years and $40 million investigating the CIA's torture program, and the 6,000+ page report is supposedly devastating in highlighting (1) how useless the program was and (2) how far the CIA went in torturing people (for absolutely no benefit) and (3) how the CIA lied to Congress about all of this. The CIA, not surprisingly, is not too happy about the report. At all. Still, despite its protests, the Senate Intelligence Committee voted to declassify the executive summary of the report.

However, the CIA got to take first crack at figuring out what to redact, which seemed like a massive conflict of interest. Either way, the CIA apparently finally ran out of black ink in late June, and asked the White House to black out whatever else was left. The State Department has already expressed concerns that releasing anything will just anger the public (our response: probably should have thought of that before sending the CIA to torture people). And, now it appears the report is being held up due to "security" concerns.

At least some are getting anxious about this. Senator Wyden has apparently deliberately mentioned Senate Resolution 400 to two separate reporters recently. The key part of Resolution 400 is as follows:

The Select Committee may, subject to the provisions of this section, disclose publicly any information in the possession of such committee after a determination by such committee that the public interest would be served by such disclosure. Whenever committee action is required to disclose any information under this section, the committee shall meet to vote on the matter within five days after any member of the committee requests such a vote. No member of the Select Committee shall disclose any information, the disclosure of which requires a committee vote, prior to a vote by the committee on the question of the disclosure of such information or after such vote except in accordance with this section

Now, this still means he'd need to get the rest of the Committee to go along with the plan, which could be difficult. But, really, it seems that this move is just an effort to remind the White House that if it keeps dragging its feet, the Intelligence Committee (the majority of whom have already supported releasing this document) can take matters into its own hands.

Originally Published: Sat, 26 Jul 2014 02:39:00 GMT
source

[Mike]

We've been joking the last few weeks about how everyone was waiting for the White House to dump buckets of black ink on the Senate Intelligence Committee's torture report. As we'd noted, for reasons that still don't make any sense, the CIA was given first crack at redacting the 480 page declassified executive summary of the 6,300 page, $40 million Senate Intelligence report into the CIA's torture program. Once the CIA was done with it, it was handed over to the White House to exhaust reserve stores of black ink.

And that appears to be exactly what happened. Late Friday, Senator Dianne Feinstein announced that the White House had returned the executive summary, but she's a bit overwhelmed by all the black ink and is holding off releasing the document until her staff can look into why there were so many redactions:

The committee this afternoon received the redacted executive summary of our study on the CIA detention and interrogation program.

A preliminary review of the report indicates there have been significant redactions. We need additional time to understand the basis for these redactions and determine their justification.

Therefore the report will be held until further notice and released when that process is completed.

At least Feinstein didn't just rubber stamp the redactions. The Senate Intelligence Committee has been pushing to release this report for over a year now, and it's been clear that the CIA/White House was going to fight them on it somewhat.

Given the most recent revelations about the CIA's attempt to spy on the Senate and to lie and mislead the Senate and the public about all of this, it seems like we shouldn't take their word for any of this. One hopes that the Senate pushes back strongly on bogus redactions. Or, better yet, that the Senate Intelligence Committee just overrides the White House and releases it themselves. Or, you know, that someone decides to just leak the damn thing already...

Originally Published: Sat, 02 Aug 2014 02:39:00 GMT
source

[Mike]

On Friday, we wrote about Senator Dianne Feinstein's concern about how much of the executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on the CIA torture program had been redacted during the declassification process. In response, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has angrily shot back that there were only "minimal" redactions:

More than 85% of the Committee Report has been declassified, and half of the redactions are in footnotes. The redactions were the result of an extensive and unprecedented interagency process, headed up by my office, to protect sensitive classified information. We are confident that the declassified document delivered to the Committee will provide the public with a full view of the Committee’s report on the detention and interrogation program, and we look forward to a constructive dialogue with the Committee.

Compare that to Feinstein's statement, which noted:

A preliminary review of the report indicates there have been significant redactions. We need additional time to understand the basis for these redactions and determine their justification.

Reporter Jason Leopold spoke to some people knowledgeable about the redactions, who said that they were about methods of torture that hadn't been revealed... and about countries that helped the CIA. Basically, more stuff that would embarrass the CIA and certain allies, but which wouldn't actually impact national security today.

Two officials with access to the declassified executive summary told VICE News that some of the redactions allegedly pertain to the manner in which the detainees were held captive, and to certain torture techniques that were not among the 10 “approved” methods contained in a Justice Department legal memo commonly referred to as the “torture memo.” The officials said the never before–revealed methods, which in certain instances were “improvised,” are central to the report because they underscore the “cruelty” of the program. Some other redactions allegedly pertain to the origins of the program and the intelligence the CIA collected through the use of torture, which the Senate report claims was of little or no value — a claim with which the CIA disagrees.

Another US official told VICE News that the CIA “vehemently opposed” the inclusion of some of the footnotes because they allegedly revealed too many “specific” details about the CIA’s operational files, which evidently contain information about foreign intelligence sources and operations, and provide clues about the foreign governments that allowed the CIA to operate its torture program in their countries. (The National Clandestine's Service's operational files are protected from public disclosure and open records laws.) The report, according to the US official, identifies the countries where the suspected terrorists were held as “Country A, Country B, Country C.”

Of course, if we're going to "come clean" on this black spot in our history, it would help to really come clean about it. Hiding that the torture the CIA did was much worse than originally thought means that officials still aren't willing to come to terms with what the CIA did.

Originally Published: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 12:41:00 GMT
source

[Mike]

On Friday, we wrote briefly about President Obama's "admission" that "we tortured some folks." At the time I was going off of the press reports of the conference, but now that I've read the full transcript of his statement, it's much worse than just that brief comment. Here's the relevant portion:

With respect to the larger point of the RDI report itself, even before I came into office I was very clear that in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 we did some things that were wrong. We did a whole lot of things that were right, but we tortured some folks. We did some things that were contrary to our values.

I understand why it happened. I think it's important when we look back to recall how afraid people were after the Twin Towers fell and the Pentagon had been hit and the plane in Pennsylvania had fallen, and people did not know whether more attacks were imminent, and there was enormous pressure on our law enforcement and our national security teams to try to deal with this. And it's important for us not to feel too sanctimonious in retrospect about the tough job that those folks had. And a lot of those folks were working hard under enormous pressure and are real patriots.

It was the "we tortured some folks" that reasonably made headlines, but the following paragraph, in which he tries to brush it off, is what's really troubling. Imagine any other crime, and think about whether or not you'd have someone say it was okay because there was "enormous pressure" on the people committing the crime. Imagine any other crime, and being told "not to feel too sanctimonious" because of what a "tough job" any other criminal had. I'm sorry, but I don't care how much pressure anyone was under, plenty of people who are actually "real patriots" know that you don't torture people. Not only does it not work, it's morally reprehensible. "You don't torture" is a pretty straightforward concept -- and one that was pretty clearly known and articulated prior to all of this. Nothing that happened on 9/11 or in the aftermath magically made war crimes like torture okay.

Those aren't "patriots," and defending them because of the "pressure" they were under is an incredibly cowardly and disgusting move.

Originally Published: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 14:42:56 GMT
source

[Mike]

The fight over the redactions of the CIA's torture report continue. Last week, Senator Dianne Feinstein noted that she and her staff were somewhat taken aback by the amount of redacted information when they received back the black ink-drenched copy of the executive summary to the $40 million, 6,300 page "devastating" report on the CIA's torture program prepared by the Senate Intelligence Committee. In response, James Clapper shot back that the redactions were "minimal" and over 85% of the document was free from black ink (it's not clear if he was counting the margins as well...).

Of course, as Marcy Wheeler has pointed out, this is just about the executive summary of the report -- which was specifically written to be published. In other words, the really "secret" stuff is in the rest of the report, but the 408 page exec summary was written with public disclosure in mind -- meaning that the Senate Intelligence Committee staffers certainly wrote it with the expectation that it would need few, if any, redactions. So the fact that large chunks of it were redacted immediately set off some alarms.

On Tuesday, multiple Senators on the Intelligence Committee spoke out angrily about the redactions. It kicked off with Feinstein who noted that the review her staff went through of the redactions shows that the censors are trying to hide information that should be public:

“After further review of the redacted version of the executive summary, I have concluded the redactions eliminate or obscure key facts that support the report’s findings and conclusions. Until these redactions are addressed to the committee’s satisfaction, the report will not be made public.

“I am sending a letter today to the president laying out a series of changes to the redactions that we believe are necessary prior to public release. The White House and the intelligence community have committed to working through these changes in good faith. This process will take some time, and the report will not be released until I am satisfied that all redactions are appropriate.

“The bottom line is that the United States must never again make the mistakes documented in this report. I believe the best way to accomplish that is to make public our thorough documentary history of the CIA’s program. That is why I believe taking our time and getting it right is so important, and I will not rush this process.”

Senator Carl Levin then came out with a much more strongly wordedcondemnation of the redactions suggesting that they were clearly designed to hide embarrassing information, which is not a legitimate reason for redactions:

“The redactions that CIA has proposed to the Intelligence Committee’s report on CIA interrogations are totally unacceptable. Classification should be used to protect sources and methods or the disclosure of information which could compromise national security, not to avoid disclosure of improper acts or embarrassing information. But in reviewing the CIA-proposed redactions, I saw multiple instances where CIA proposes to redact information that has already been publicly disclosed in the Senate Armed Services Committee report on detainee abuse that was reviewed by the administration and authorized for release in 2009. The White House needs to take hold of this process and ensure that all information that should be declassified is declassified.”

Senator Mark Udall issued a statement in which he notes that the "strategic" redactions are used to distort the nature of what's in the report:

"While Director Clapper may be technically correct that the document has been 85 percent declassified, it is also true that strategically placed redactions can make a narrative incomprehensible and can certainly make it more difficult to understand the basis for the findings and conclusions reached in the report. I agree wholeheartedly that redactions are necessary to protect intelligence sources and methods, but the White House must work closely with this committee to reach this goal in a way that makes it possible for the public to understand what happened.

"I am committed to working with Chairman Feinstein to declassify the Senate Intelligence Committee's study to the fullest extent possible, correct the record on the CIA's brutal and ineffective detention and interrogation program, and ensure the CIA learns from its past mistakes. And in light of the importance of the work the Senate Intelligence Committee has undertaken, I believe that the chairman should take all necessary time to ensure that the redactions to the executive summary are appropriate — not merely made to cover up acts that could embarrass the agency.

"The CIA should not face its past with a redaction pen, and the White House must not allow it to do so."

All three of those Senators are well aware of what's in the report, and it appears they recognize that the black ink was being used not to protect national security or "sources and methods" but rather to hide or distort the facts of the CIA's torture program.

Originally Published: Wed, 06 Aug 2014 14:52:29 GMT
source

[Mike]

As the fight over the redactions on the CIA torture report continue, it's worth reminding folks how you can totally change the story with just a few well placed redactions. Director of National Intelligence has insisted that just 15% was redacted -- though, as Marcy Wheeler points out, the part that's being declassified is just the exec summary, which was written specifically to get around the redactor's ink, since the details are buried in the full report, which will likely remain classified for a while. In other words, the vast, vast majority of the report is still "redacted." Still, even a 15% redaction can do a lot of damage and hide a lot of facts. Senator Mark Udall has made it clear that the existing redactions make parts of the report "incomprehensible" in an effort to hide embarrassing information from the public.

Reed Richardson decided to do a fairly simple demonstration to show just how much a 15% redaction can bury key points. He took President Obama's statement about how "we tortured some folks" and redacted "just 15%" of it (though such that if you look closely, you can see what's covered). Notice how the key elements -- the admission of torture -- simply fade away...

Richardson told me the whole exercise took less than 10 minutes, demonstrating just how easy it is to distort a report based on a few strategic redactions.

Originally Published: Thu, 07 Aug 2014 16:03:40 GMT
source

[Mike]

We've questioned in the past why Senators like Dianne Feinstein won't come out and admit that what the CIA did was torture. Even President Obama has used the word to explain the CIA's actions. Yet, beyond Senator Feinstein, there was one other major hold out: the NY Times refused to use that word. Until now. In a note from the executive editor of the Times, Dean Baquet, he says that the NY Times will finally be accurate and will describe the CIA's actions as torture:

[F]rom now on, The Times will use the word “torture” to describe incidents in which we know for sure that interrogators inflicted pain on a prisoner in an effort to get information.

In explaining the change, Baquet insists that early on, not as much was known about the techniques used by the CIA, and that many with knowledge of the situation insisted that it didn't rise to the level of torture. Of course, that those with knowledge were often protecting themselves perhaps should have risen red flags for the Times. Baquet also notes that reporters at the paper urged editors to change their policy -- so kudos to those reporters.

That said, there is something troubling in this part of the rationale:

Meanwhile, the Justice Department, under both the Bush and Obama administrations, has made clear that it will not prosecute in connection with the interrogation program. The result is that today, the debate is focused less on whether the methods violated a statute or treaty provision and more on whether they worked – that is, whether they generated useful information that the government could not otherwise have obtained from prisoners. In that context, the disputed legal meaning of the word “torture” is secondary to the common meaning: the intentional infliction of pain to make someone talk.

In other words, in the past, whether or not it was torture actually mattered, because legally it might have resulted in prosecutions of people committing war crimes. Under US law, the US has to prosecute those engaged in torture. But now that the "powers that be" have made it clear it simply won't prosecute anyone, and thus it doesn't really matter legally if it's referred to as torture or not, the NY Times will finally call it what it is. That seems immensely troubling. It basically suggests the NY Times could have impacted an important debate, but chose to sit it out until it was much too late to matter.

So, yes, it's good that the NY Times is finally calling torture, torture, but it's a black mark on the paper that it didn't do so years ago.

Originally Published: Fri, 08 Aug 2014 07:39:21 GMT
source

[Mike]

James Clapper is pulling out all the stops to try to keep the details of the CIA torture report from seeing the light of day. He apparently made the decision (without asking the White House) to have the National Intelligence Council put together a memo explaining that releasing the details of how the CIA tortured people would "inflame anti-U.S. passions in the Mideast, resulting in potentially violent street protests and threats to U.S. embassies and personnel." Except, of course, this is bullshit. It wouldn't be the release of the report inflaming such passions -- it would be the torture performed by the CIA at the direction of the US government. If the intelligence community is so worried about the details becoming public then it shouldn't have engaged in torture in the first place. Otherwise, the intelligence community has all the cover it needs to do horrible things, because any move to expose those actions could be stopped under this same idiotic theory that the revealing of those actions would create anger, rather than the actions themselves.

And, yet, the memo is being passed around and used by the supporters of the surveillance state to protest the releasing of any details from the Senate Intelligence Committee's CIA torture report:

The Mideast is a tinderbox right now and this could be the spark that ignites quite a fire,” said one U.S. intelligence official who was briefed on the findings.

That concern was echoed Friday by a former top U.S. intelligence official who helped oversee the interrogation program. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out if you release a report like this at a time when terrorism is surging all over the Mideast you are handing the other side a recruitment tool,” John McLaughlin, a former CIA deputy director, told Yahoo News. “It’s blindingly obvious.”

Of course, the response to McLaughlin ought to be "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if you release a report like this, it might embarrass folks like John McLaughlin for his role in the torture program. It's blindingly obvious." And, really, if McLaughlin is so concerned about how folks might react to this program, perhaps he should have, you know, stopped it.

Originally Published: Mon, 11 Aug 2014 17:14:42 GMT
source

[Mike]

We've been covering the pending release of the Senate Intelligence Committee's CIA torture report, which is currently undergoing a fight over what should or should not be redacted. We also covered the NY Times report about how former CIA boss George Tenet (who helped mentor current CIA boss John Brennan) is both implicated by the report... and has been leading the campaign to discredit the report.

It appears that he's not the only former CIA boss tapped to do so. Former CIA (and NSA) director Michael Hayden has kicked off what can only, charitably, be described as a smear campaign against the report and any of its supporters. The piece, published in the Washington Times, tries to paint the whole thing as being a "Democrat" plot to discredit the good and righteous CIA-supporting Republicans. Frankly, the idea that any of this is a partisan battle is just silly. Lots of things in DC are partisan, but there's been little indication that the CIA report is driven in any way by partisan interests. After all, the CIA's current director, Brennan, was appointed by a Democratic President. In fact, in the past, Brennan has actually lashed out at Republicans for playing "political football" over national security issues. Of course, now that it's happening in his favor...

Hayden goes on to push a blatant smear on Retired Major General Antonio Taguba, who recently wrote an op-ed for the NY Times asking President Obama to stop hiding the report and to release it. Of course, Hayden doesn't actually link to Taguba's piece. Because he doesn't want you to actually read it. He just wants to smear Taguba, who has some experience in exposing coverups and bad behavior. He headed the military's investigation into the Abu Ghraib prison. And his statement is powerful:

Even though a bipartisan majority of the committee voted to declassify the report, there is a concerted effort to discredit it by depicting it as partisan and unfair. The report’s detractors include the C.I.A. itself: The agency’s rebuttal will be released alongside the report’s key sections. While the C.I.A. is under no obligation to stay silent in the face of criticism, it seems that between its apparently excessive redactions and its spying on the committee’s computers, the agency is determined to resist oversight.

Yet I know from experience that oversight will help the C.I.A. — as it helped the United States military. Ten years ago, I was directed by Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the senior officer in Iraq, to investigate allegations of detainee abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. My report’s findings, which prompted a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, documented a systemic problem: military personnel had perpetrated “numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses.”

The findings, along with what became infamous images of abuse, caused a stir and led to prosecutions. The inquiry shed light on our country’s trip to the dark side, in which the United States government engaged in an assault on American ideals, broke the law and in so doing strengthened our enemies.

The heart of Hayden's smear campaign is that Taguba couldn't possibly know what's actually in the report, because it's not out yet. He admits that some details of the report have been leaked to the press, but insists that no one knows if these are accurate. Of course, he also admits that he, himself, was given a copy of the report to review (in unredacted form, even), and yet he doesn't even attempt to counter what was said in the leaks. Hmm.

Hayden also pulls the "law and order" card, in claiming that the CIA couldn't possibly have done wrong because the "CIA’s program was authorized by the highest levels of the U.S. government, declared lawful on four occasions by the Department of Justice, monitored by an Inspector General, and briefed to the leadership of Congress." Except... that's not quite what the leaks from the report have said. It talks about how the CIA regularly misled Congress about the program, including what techniques they were using and how effective the torture program was. Besides, the whole "it's okay because someone said it was legal" excuse is extremely weak.

Hayden also tries to smear two other military generals who have expressed similar concerns. Former Marine Corps Commandant General Charles Krulak and former Central Command Chief General Joseph Hoar wrote a similar article for the Chicago Tribune (again, Hayden fails to link to it). Like Taguba's, it's powerful.

Mr. President, the stakes are too high to allow the intelligence community to circle the wagons and obscure the truth about torture: that it is both wrong and wrong-headed, an immoral and illegal act that makes the country less safe. People familiar with the report, as well as news reports, say that the committee has concluded that torture was more brutal and common than Americans were led to believe and that it failed as an intelligence-producing tactic. The committee also reportedly found that the CIA misled the administration and Congress about the nature and extent of the torture.

We understand why CIA officials will find these findings embarrassing. But potential embarrassment is not a valid reason to try to deny Americans a full understanding of what their government did in their name. The military took its lumps when the Senate Armed Service Committee released its report on detainee abuse within its ranks and emerged as a stronger institution as a result. President Obama should ensure that the CIA does the same.

This report offers the best opportunity yet for us as a nation to come to terms with what our government did in our name. The debate is not historical or academic.

Again, rather than addressing any of the issues, or responding to their claims, Hayden goes back to the same tired line that the report is a "Democrat" report, and that since these generals haven't seen it (while he has), they should not comment on it.

Hayden then goes on to brush off the now admitted spying on the Senate Intelligence Committee by the CIA, claiming that it was a "clumsy investigation" and not a "constitutional crisis":

Supporters of the SSCI report are likening CIA opposition to the SSCI Democrats’ conclusions as an attack on oversight itself. CIA’s clumsy investigation into how Senate staffers acquired some documents feeds this story line, but forcefully saying the report is badly flawed isn’t a constitutional crisis — it’s a disagreement over facts.

But the "constitutional crisis" that people were discussing was not a "disagreement over facts" it was over the CIA, a part of the executive branch, spying on its overseers in the legislative branch. That is a constitutional issue. You'd think Hayden would be aware of the basic separation of powers, but perhaps not. Furthermore, it's not the "SSCI Democrats' conclusions." The vote to declassify the report was not Intelligence Committee Democrats vs. Republicans but a bipartisan 11 to 3 vote.

It seems that defenders of the CIA are getting fairly desperate in smearing anyone credible (including three highly respected former high ranking military officers) speaking out on why the CIA's shameful torture program shouldn't be hidden behind black ink.

Originally Published: Wed, 27 Aug 2014 18:25:45 GMT
source

[Mike]

Among the many, many, many problems with running a torture program (beyond being morally problematic and with no history of effectiveness) is the fact that it makes it easier for others to justify torture programs as well. It's now come out that ISIS has been waterboarding prisoners, including reporter James Foley whom they recently beheaded. Waterboarding, of course, was one of the CIA's favorite torture techniques. And, of course, people had warned for years that having the CIA waterboard people would only encourage others to use the technique against Americans. Hell, even Senator Dianne Feinstein condemned waterboarding a few years ago, because it would lead others to do it against the US:

Waterboarding dates to the Spanish Inquisition and has been a favorite of dictators through the ages, including Pol Pot and the regime in Burma. Its practice is designed to nearly drown a subject and make them think they're going to die.

Torture - including waterboarding - is immoral and illegal. It violates U.S. and international law and the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit the intentional infliction of severe pain or suffering. Condoning torture opens the door for our enemies to do the same to captured American troops in the future.

Of course, beheading people is even worse that waterboarding them, and that seems to be the "defense" that administration officials are using to downplay the discovery of ISIS waterboarding techniques. "Hey, at least it's not as bad as beheading" is hardly a compelling response to finding out that ISIS is using CIA and DOJ-approved torture techniques.

The FBI, which is investigating Foley’s death and the abduction of Americans in Syria, declined to comment. The CIA had no official comment.

“ISIL is a group that routinely crucifies and beheads people,” a U.S. official, using one of the acronyms for the militant group. “To suggest that there is any correlation between ISIL’s brutality and past U.S. actions is ridiculous and feeds into their twisted propaganda.”

Yes, it's true that ISIS seems to have little concern about what techniques it's using, but to argue that the CIA's prolific use of torture and waterboarding has had no impact on how groups treat captured Americans seems like a stretch. At the very least, it takes away any chance of a moral high ground to argue about the specific techniques being used, and at worst contributes to the reasons why these groups feel justified in what they're doing.

Originally Published: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 07:38:07 GMT
source