The explosive Senate report released on Tuesday reveals that the CIA’s harsh interrogation of terrorist detainees during the Bush era did not work and were more brutal than previously revealed without delivering any time-sensitive information that prevented an attack.
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released the so-called torture report on the CIA’s interrogation practices and said the agency misled Americans and mismanaged the program that was secretly put into place after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, according to ABC News.
The 5-year study by the committee was conducted after reviewing over 6 million pages of internal CIA records. The study found that the interrogation techniques used on over 100 detainees “were not effective” and “far more brutal” than was relayed to lawmakers and the U.S. public.
President Obama formally ended the CIA’s detention and interrogation program after he took office, the Los Angeles Times reported.
[quote text_size=”small” author=”– Barack Obama” author_title=”President of the United States”]
The report documents a troubling program involving enhanced interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects in secret facilities outside the United States, and it reinforces my long-held view that these harsh methods were not only inconsistent with our values as a nation, they did not serve our broader counter-terrorism efforts or our national security interests.
[/quote]
The majority report issued a condemnation of the tactics of the George W. Bush administration. Its release has reignited a partisan divide over combating terrorism, with Democrats arguing that the tactics are in clear conflict with American values while leading members of the Bush administration insist they were necessary to prevent another attack, according to CNN.
The report went into great detail and examined twenty specific cases in which the CIA claimed some type of success in getting information from its interrogation procedures. The report said these claims by the CIA were wrong. It also said the management of the program was flawed and pointed to an example in November 2002 when a detainee who was held partially nude and chained to a concrete floor and wall died from a suspected case of hypothermia. A junior CIA officer was in charge of the facility identified by the pseudonym COBALT. The report found senior CIA leadership had no knowledge of COBALT operations.
The report detailed techniques it called more brutal than any previously revealed by the agency, including an interrogation session with the first detainee, Abu Zabaydah, in which he became fully unresponsive with bubbles rising through his mouth after a period of waterboarding. At least five detainees were subjected to “rectal feeding” or “rectal hydration.”
