CIA accused of overstepping its boundaries, lying about methods
By Jeremy Au Yong, U.S. Bureau Chief In Washington, The Straits Times, 11 Dec 2014
By Jeremy Au Yong, U.S. Bureau Chief In Washington, The Straits Times, 11 Dec 2014
THE United States government is coming under fire worldwide for using torture tactics on prisoners, even as the White House sought to draw a line between itself and the gruesome methods outlined in a newly declassified report about a controversial Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) interrogation programme.
A 500-page summary released on Tuesday accused the agency, not just of overstepping its boundaries by engaging in torture, but also of subsequently lying about the severity of the methods and how effective they were at producing intelligence.
The report was released by Democrat senator Dianne Feinstein, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The investigation was conducted by staff working for Democratic senators on the committee.
British Prime Minister David Cameron was among the first foreign leaders to denounce the practices.
"Let us be clear: Torture is wrong. Torture is always wrong," he said at a press conference in Turkey, where he is holding meetings with local officials on how to respond to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria militant group.
China and Russia also seized on the report.
"China has consistently opposed torture. We believe that the US side should reflect on this, correct its ways and earnestly respect and follow the rules of related international conventions," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a daily briefing yesterday.
China is frequently accused by rights groups of using torture.
There have, thus far, been no reports of violence in the Middle East, even if many in the region have taken to social media to criticise the US as well as their own country's complicity in the torture. The Democrat-driven Senate report indicated that 54 countries might have had a hand in the CIA programme.
Few might have guessed the extent of the aggressive tactics used by CIA officers.
A single prisoner - alleged Sept 11, 2001 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed - was waterboarded more than 180 times. Waterboarding recreates the sensation of drowning.
Another detainee was locked in a coffin for 11 days and squeezed into an even smaller box for 29 hours. Many others were deprived of sleep or chained naked in a standing position for days. One detainee died of hypothermia while chained naked to a cold concrete floor overnight.
Then, there were the so-called "rectal hydration" or "rectal feeding" procedures, which were done simply as a means to exert total control over the detainees.
And though little, if any, useful intelligence was ever gleaned from the programme, the CIA misrepresented its results to lawmakers to justify its actions.
On Tuesday, CIA director John Brennan refuted the report, stating categorically that the interrogation programme had indeed foiled terror plots and saved lives. Republican leaders also dismissed the report as a partisan attack.
Said incoming Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell: "It doesn't tell us much that we didn't probably already know anyway, but significantly endangers Americans around the world. This particular release, in my judgment, serves no purpose whatsoever."
US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry tried to cast the issue as a chance for the United States to face the mistakes of its past and move on.
"No nation is perfect. But one of the strengths that makes America exceptional is our willingness to openly confront our past, face our imperfections, make changes and do better," said Mr Obama.
Similarly, Ms Feinstein stressed that the findings went beyond just the actions of the CIA.
"It's really about American values and morals... These values exist regardless of the circumstances in which we find ourselves. They exist in peacetime and in wartime. And if we cast aside these values when convenient, we have failed to live by the very precepts that make our nation a great one."
'America's greatness is being able to say we made a mistake'
The Straits Times, 11 Dec 2014
The Straits Times, 11 Dec 2014
WASHINGTON - To senator Dianne Feinstein, the need to make public the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on the torture of terrorism detainees in the aftermath of the Sept 11, 2001 attacks was never in question, despite years of determined resistance by intelligence officials and their allies.
"Nobody wants to do something that is going to bring on any kind of attack," Ms Feinstein, the committee's chairman and a Democrat, told reporters after her hour-long speech from the Senate floor on Tuesday, describing the report and its harsh criticism of the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) interrogation programme.
"But I came to the conclusion that America's greatness is being able to say we made a mistake and we are going to correct it and go from there."
Her speech was a signal moment for both the Intelligence Committee and Ms Feinstein herself. At times, she had seemed to waver when pressure mounted against disclosing the report, which was assembled over five years by committee Democrats.
But the 81-year-old from California - who is about to surrender the top role on the committee when the Republicans take control of the Senate next month - made a forceful case for a broad airing of the torture tactics.
"I give her enormous credit," said Senator Martin Heinrich, a Democrat from New Mexico, who sits on the committee. "Given the coordinated efforts to try to keep that report from coming out, you can just see how much strength and backbone she has."
Ms Feinstein acknowledged that she had been given pause again in recent days by the suggestion from Secretary of State John Kerry that releasing the document could provoke unrest in the Middle East and elsewhere.
Her reservations, she said, were erased both by the realisation that conditions in that region were not likely to improve and by a conviction that a relatively small number of CIA workers were guilty of "brutality in stark contrast to our values as a nation".
A turning point for Ms Feinstein also came in March with the disclosure that CIA workers had infiltrated the computers used by Senate Intelligence Committee staff to write the report.
Top Republicans described the report as a politically charged Democratic document that distorted events. But at least one Republican was on her side.
Senator John McCain of Arizona, who was tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, followed Ms Feinstein's remarks with a powerful condemnation of torture.
As he walked off the floor, Ms Feinstein called out to him, walked over to his desk and gave him a kiss on the cheek.
Cheney slams report on CIA torture of terror suspects
Former US vice-president defends interrogation tactics
Former US vice-president defends interrogation tactics
The Straits Times, 12 Dec 2014
WASHINGTON - Former US vice-president Dick Cheney has blasted the Senate report detailing the torture of "war on terror" detainees, calling it "terrible" and "full of crap".
Mr Cheney, who was vice-president under Mr George W. Bush when the brutal "enhanced interrogation techniques" were used, said the programme had been entirely justified.
His comments came as a group of former top CIA officials also disputed the report's findings, saying the interrogations saved lives.
Separately, an unnamed US official told AFP that the US military no longer operates detention facilities in Afghanistan, where torture allegedly occurred in the past.
Separately, an unnamed US official told AFP that the US military no longer operates detention facilities in Afghanistan, where torture allegedly occurred in the past.
Mr Cheney told Fox News on Wednesday: "We did exactly what needed to be done in order to catch those who were guilty on 9/11 and to prevent a further attack, and we were successful on both parts."
The scathing 500-page report, released on Tuesday, said the CIA's interrogation of Al-Qaeda suspects - including beatings, "rectal rehydration" and sleep deprivation - was far more brutal than acknowledged and did not produce useful intelligence.
The CIA deliberately misled Congress and the White House about the value of the intelligence its interrogators were gathering, the report concluded.
Mr Cheney did not mince his words in response: "The report's full of crap, excuse me. I said hooey yesterday - let me use the real word."
The Senate investigation was "deeply flawed" and "didn't bother to interview key people involved in the programme", he said.
The report - whose damning findings provoked worldwide condemnation - also said that Mr Bush was given details of the tactics only in 2006, four years after the CIA began using them, and that he had "expressed discomfort".
Mr Cheney denied Mr Bush was kept out of the loop, saying the then president was in fact "an integral part of the programme and he had to approve it".
Mr Cheney's views were echoed by former CIA directors George Tenet, Porter Goss and Michael Hayden who, along with three ex-deputy directors, wrote in an op-ed article in the Wall Street Journal that the Senate Intelligence Committee was wrong in saying the agency had been deceptive.
"The committee has given us... a one-sided study marred by errors of fact and interpretation," they said.
The report concluded that the CIA had failed to disrupt any plots despite torturing captives. But the former CIA officials said the US never would have tracked down and killed Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in 2011 without information acquired in the interrogation programme.
They said their methods also led to the capture of ranking Al-Qaeda operatives, provided valuable information about the organisation and saved thousands of lives by disrupting Al-Qaeda plots.
While admitting they did not do everything "perfectly", the former officials pointed out that agents had been in an unprecedented daily "ticking time bomb scenario" that required quick action.They said the CIA sought and received confirmation from the White House and the Justice Department for its programmes.
Mr Cheney said that when faced with a key suspect such as self-proclaimed Sept 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, interrogators had to be tough.
"What are we supposed to do - kiss him on both cheeks and say, 'Please, please, tell us what you know?' Of course not."
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS