Link To Full Torture Report: Brutality, Dishonesty, Arbitrary Violence
The full report is here. It details brutality, dishonesty and arbitrary violence.
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…agency medical personnel voiced alarm that waterboarding methods had deteriorated to “a series of near drownings” and that agency employees subjected detainees to “rectal rehydration” and other painful procedures that were never approved…
CIA officials allegedly deceived their superiors at the White House, members of Congress and even sometimes their own peers about how the interrogation program was being run and what it had achieved. In one case, an internal CIA memo relays instructions from the White House to keep the program secret from then-Secretary of State Colin Powell out of concern that he would “blow his stack if he were to be briefed on what’s going on.”…
A declassified summary of the committee’s work discloses for the first time a complete roster of all 119 prisoners held in CIA custody and indicates that at least 26 were held because of mistaken identities or bad intelligence. The publicly released summary is drawn from a longer, classified study that exceeds 6,000 pages…
The panel deconstructs prominent claims about the value of the “enhanced” measures, including that they produced breakthrough intelligence in the hunt for Osama bin Laden, and dismisses them all as exaggerated if not utterly false — assertions that the CIA and former officers involved in the program vehemently dispute.
The CIA of course, is disputing the report:
“Many of the Study’s charges that CIA misrepresented are based on the authors’ flawed analysis of the value of the intelligence obtained from detainees,” the statement said. “But whether Congress accepts their assessment or ours, we still must question a report that impugns the integrity of so many CIA officers when it implies — as it does clearly through the conclusions — that the Agency’s assessments were willfully misrepresented in a calculated effort to manipulate.”
[su_r_sky_ad]Here are other highlights:
- At one point in 2002, CIA employees at a secret site in Thailand broke down emotionally after witnessing harrowing treatment of Abu Zubaida, a high-profile facilitator for al-Qaeda.
- The document names only a handful of high-ranking CIA employees and does not call for any further investigation of those involved or even offer any formal recommendations. It steers clear of scrutinizing the involvement of the White House and Justice Department, which two years ago ruled out the possibility that CIA employees would face prosecution.
- [Senator Dianne] Feinstein does not characterize the CIA’s actions as torture, but said the trauma of Sept. 11 had prompted the agency to employ “brutal interrogation techniques in violation of U.S. law, treaty obligations and our values.” The report should serve as “a warning for the future,” she said. “We cannot again allow history to be forgotten and grievous past mistakes to be repeated.”
- At its height, the CIA program included secret prisons in countries including Afghanistan, Thailand, Romania, Lithuania and Poland — locations that are referred to only by color-themed codes in the report, such as “Cobalt,” to preserve a veneer of secrecy.
- After being transferred to a site in Thailand, Zubaida was placed in isolation for 47 days, a period during which the presumably important source on al-Qaeda faced no questions. Then, at 11:50 a.m. on Aug. 4, 2002, the CIA launched a round-the-clock interrogation assault — slamming Zubaida against walls, stuffing him into a coffin-sized box and waterboarding him until he coughed, vomited and had “involuntary spasms of the torso and extremities.”
- The treatment continued for 17 days. At one point, the waterboarding left Zubaida “completely unresponsive, with bubbles rising through his open, full mouth.”
- The document provides a similarly detailed account of the interrogation of the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who fed his interrogators a stream of falsehoods and intelligence fragments. Waterboarding was supposed to simulate suffocation with a damp cloth and a trickle of liquid. But with Mohammed, CIA operatives used their hands to form a standing pool of water over his mouth. KSM, as he is known in agency documents, was ingesting “a LOT of water,” a CIA medical officer wrote, saying that the application had been so altered that “we are basically doing a series of near drownings.”
- The agency’s records of the program were so riddled with errors, according to the report, that the CIA often offered conflicting counts of how many prisoners it had…In 2007, then-CIA Director Hayden testified in a closed-door session with the Senate panel that “in the history of the program, we’ve had 97 detainees.” In reality, the number was 119…Two years later, when Hayden was preparing to deliver an early intelligence briefing for senior aides to newly elected President Obama, a subordinate noted that the actual count was significantly higher. Hayden “instructed me to keep the detainee number at 98,” the employee wrote to himself in an e-mail. “Pick whatever date I needed to make that happen but the number is 98.”… Hayden said the discrepancy in the prisoner numbers reflected the fact that detainees captured before the start of the interrogation program were counted separately from those held at the black sites.
- Tapes of interrogations were destroyed in 2006 at the behest of CIA counterterrorism chief Jose Rodriguez, a move that triggered a Justice Department investigation.
- Senate investigators said none of the claims that torture helped obtain valuable information held up under scrutiny, with some unraveling because information was erroneously attributed to detainees subjected to harsh interrogations, others because the CIA already had information from other sources.
- Torture played no meaningful role in the identification of a courier, Abu Ahmad al-Kuwaiti, who would lead the agency to bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
tracey marie December 9th, 2014 at 3:06 pm
As a Nation we should be ashamed and bush/cheney should be in jail.
Wayout December 9th, 2014 at 7:23 pm
And what about Pelosi, Harmon, and the rest of the Democrat leadership? They knew all about what the CIA was doing and they never uttered a peep of opposition at the time. They all voted for the war, (including Hillary) gave the CIA carteanc b and now it’s 10 years later and all they all are outraged. Give me a break!
tracey marie December 9th, 2014 at 7:26 pm
stop deflecting and for once hold bush/cheney responsible for all the evil and stupid things they have done.
Wayout December 9th, 2014 at 8:21 pm
Not deflecting, but just want the whole truth to get out there in case anyone forgot. Bush and Cheney were not the only elected officials involved in all that happened.
But honestly, where is your or anyone else’s outrage at the indiscriminate drone attacks? You have got to hand it to the Dems though, putting out the report on the day the liar Gruber appeared before the Congress.
arc99 December 9th, 2014 at 8:23 pm
Ted Kennedy, Barbara Boxer and others among the most liberal members of Congress did not vote for the war.
Just goes to show you the mistakes we make when conservatives get their way.
Wayout December 9th, 2014 at 9:47 pm
But Nancy and Hillary sure did, as did the majority of both political parties. You libs are not going to get away from your part in all of this.
tracey marie December 9th, 2014 at 10:01 pm
lol, according to you Obama and now Hillary(expected the attacks) are responsible for all of the bush mistakes…grow the hell up
Obewon December 9th, 2014 at 10:30 pm
We’re squeaky clean but “your part in all of this”? You voted twice for GWB / Cheney and said in 2012:
‘knowing what I know now’ “No WMD’s” “4,500 US-KIA, $6 trillion cost+”-Wayout: “I’d invade Iraq again” ‘Carpet bomb the whole Middle East’-SOD Wayout!
Palinista uknowingly begins WW-III ending 95% of life on Earth forcing a few surviving humans to live in caves for 3-5 years of “Nuclear winter” until the radiation levels drop again to survivable rates but with far higher cancer rates.
jasperjava December 10th, 2014 at 2:33 am
Democrats who voted for the war fell for the campaign of lies and misinformation by the bloodthirsty and illegitimate B*$h regime. They were naive, not malicious. They never thought that Dubya would be reckless enough to use the AUMF the way he did, without real international approval. They certainly never thought that the criminal Republican warmongers would resort to torture.
Most Democrats who were duped by the evil Cheney regime repented of their gullible folly. Liberal Democrats voted against it.
jasperjava December 10th, 2014 at 2:38 am
“You libs”
Liberals protested the war, hundreds of thousands of us in the streets.
Now you try to tar us with your mistakes? It isn’t going to work. Everybody knows who is responsible for the Iraq War and the use of torture. It sure isn’t the liberals.
BreitbartLovesEwe December 10th, 2014 at 3:25 am
Yes. Thousand of us in the streets. I am thankful for that at least. I was there. People who saw me would have known–or wondered–why I was expressing such anger and distress. At least I have the personal peace of mind which comes from having been *right*–not that I take joy that so many were benighted by the lamestream military-industrial media. While I received from intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky and Alexander Cockburn, I know that people have to purposefully expose themselves to the wisdom of such intellectuals in order to begin to see the truth and many are busy watching football.
burqa December 10th, 2014 at 7:44 pm
What does this have to do with the torture report?
BreitbartLovesEwe December 11th, 2014 at 1:25 am
So you were all good with attacking Iraq just like Hillary Clinton. Got it.
burqa December 10th, 2014 at 7:44 pm
This is what Wayout and that other guy do and it’s a shame to see people falling for this dusty old trick of changing the subject.
When they do that, it is a warning signal that they don’t want to discuss the topic, which tells you to bear down on herding them back to it, because they are all but admitting they have a weak argument or no argument at all.
tracey marie December 9th, 2014 at 8:30 pm
drones are bombs, they are much more precise. Now, stop deflecting and hold bush responsible for his entire 8 years of hell for America. Cheney for his worse then hell on America. Stop with the stupid deflection towards gruber, how many times does your ass have to be beat before you admit it is racism from the right?
Wayout December 9th, 2014 at 9:52 pm
Precise? It is estimated that at least 300 children have been killed on Obama’s orders, not to mention his killing of an American citizen in another direct violation of the Constitution.
But we see the true hell of Obama, riots all over the place and not a word to calm them down. The “community organizer” actually joins with the rabble rouser Al Sharpton to incite them. Unbelievable!
Obewon December 9th, 2014 at 9:59 pm
Where’s your link? Collateral damage under GWB was 33% to 50% killing thousands of kids. Under the Obama Admin Collateral damage has fallen to 2% to 5% while dispatching far more terrorists than W/Cheney’s $6 T+ faux Oil War admin.
tracey marie December 9th, 2014 at 10:02 pm
And bush killed tens of thousands…grow the hell up
whatthe46 December 9th, 2014 at 10:10 pm
riots are because of OBAMA? are you fk’n kidding me?
jasperjava December 10th, 2014 at 2:48 am
“not a word to calm them down”
You never miss an opportunity to spread malicious slander against the President, do you?
Over the last few months the President has repeatedly appealed for calm. Most recently he appealed for people to accept the findings of the Ferguson Grand Jury, even though they are highly questionable.
Arthur E.D. Dorrough December 10th, 2014 at 11:06 am
Obama has set race relations back 50 years! But then, what would anyone expect from a left wing agitator.
jasperjava December 10th, 2014 at 1:15 pm
Martin Luther King was also accused of being a left-wing agitator, and of making race relations worse because he refused to accept white supremacist injustice like a good boy.
The only way that President Obama made race relations worse is that he had the audacity of getting elected President of the United States while having dark skin. That brought out all the racists out of the woodwork. You’re a prime example.
Arthur E.D. Dorrough December 10th, 2014 at 2:32 pm
and neither were endowed with “reason and conscience”, which is a requirement, to be equal.
jasperjava December 10th, 2014 at 3:00 pm
Martin Luther King and Barack Obama are not endowed with reason or conscience? On what basis do you make that extraordinary claim?
To me, they are prime examples of reasonable, conscientious men. Certainly when we compare them to brainless teabaggers.
Arthur E.D. Dorrough December 10th, 2014 at 3:10 pm
You, like so many others, have drank their “kool-aide”. Sorry, I won’t help you. “Teabaggers” have taken over Congress and the Senate, you have been “bagged”, again, I won’t help you.
jasperjava December 10th, 2014 at 4:23 pm
So in other words, you can’t back up your assertion that Black people are devoid of conscience or reason.
Just another pathetic racist Klansman who can’t get over the fact that the world has changed, and constantly changing.
As for Congress, the President will continue to wipe the floor with them. Hundreds of teabag Republicans combined can’t match his intellect.
Arthur E.D. Dorrough December 10th, 2014 at 4:38 pm
Did I say “black people”? Or is it just where your mind automatically goes when confronted with a hard truth? I won’t help you.
burqa December 10th, 2014 at 7:40 pm
What does this have to do with the torture report?
jasperjava December 10th, 2014 at 7:45 pm
The same attitude that deprives human rights to detainees also dehumanizes minorities. It’s all fed by racist bigotry.
burqa December 10th, 2014 at 7:49 pm
I’m not seeing it.
It looks to me like a diversion off topic because this Arthur E.D. Dorrough guy can’t intelligently address the torture report.
burqa December 10th, 2014 at 7:21 pm
Wrong.
Got anything on the fact we had an official policy of torture and abandoned the most effective interrogation methods in favor of using the the least effective?
It looks like you’re folding on the subject at hand and are trying to distract because you don’t have anything on the topic.
burqa December 10th, 2014 at 7:20 pm
He has nothing to offer on the subject at hand.
He’s folding on the topic of torture.
burqa December 10th, 2014 at 7:18 pm
Good grief.
We began introducing precision munitions in the Gulf War of what, 1991? Ever since then we’ve used more and more bombs and missiles guided to their target by lasers and GPS. This has allowed us to drop fewer bombs because the increase in accuracy means they hit much closer to the target.
But somehow, Wayout missed this.
Apparently he had no idea till tracey marie brought it up.
jasperjava December 10th, 2014 at 2:43 am
Where do you get the idea that the drone attacks are “indiscriminate”? They are among the most precise weapons ever developed over that distance. They are carefully planned by US military personnel.
But we already know that you have nothing but contempt for the US military. You boasted that you’re “not all that aggrieved” when they get killed in combat.
BreitbartLovesEwe December 10th, 2014 at 3:16 am
While I have no doubt you are right that the president’s critics yammer for no reason at all, that critics of Obama from the left correctly point out that these drone strikes are typically done based on less than perfectly reliable “intel” and that the potential to kill innocent children and etc. is not uniformly given the level of consideration as is reasonable to ask. Cheers.
jasperjava December 10th, 2014 at 7:56 am
You are correct. But operating from uncertain intelligence is a far cry from “indiscriminate”.
We’re talking about Wayout / John Tarter here. I doubt he has the education to understand a polysillabic word like “indiscriminate”.
burqa December 10th, 2014 at 7:09 pm
You aren’t very familiar with the intelligence business, are you.
Wayout December 10th, 2014 at 3:52 pm
Oh I see, so they are deliberately going after women and children? What would you rather have happen to you, get waterboarded and live, or get killed by a drone on Obama’s orders?
jasperjava December 10th, 2014 at 4:32 pm
How come you’re so concerned about the civilians who are accidentally killed in drone attacks, but you’re “not all that aggrieved” by US troops who are needlessly killed in unjustified wars for corporate profits?
burqa December 10th, 2014 at 7:07 pm
The right-wing pundits who issue your opinions to you have not explained the difference.
It is fine to shoot an enemy on the battlefield with, say, a bullet or a missile.
It is not fine to do so when you’ve captured the enemy and have him in your custody.
So, in my case, I’m fine with killing terrorists with drones and opposed to waterboarding for two reasons.
One is I am proud that my country does not have a tradition of torture, rather, the Founding Fathers were revolted by it and forbade it. This is one of the principles this country was founded upon. Principles like that make us an exceptional nation. I am disgusted that for several years this country had an official national policy of torturing prisoners. We have always had higher moral standards than that.
The second reason is the expedient one. I’ve studied the subject and am quite familiar with the most successful methods of interrogation. I think those are the ones we should use. I want the best.
Through history, the most successful interrogators used humane approaches. These interrogators are studied at schools our military has to train interrogators. Our military interrogators have been very successful using those approaches, and that is what they – the best experts on the subject – say works best.
Arthur E.D. Dorrough December 10th, 2014 at 4:50 pm
“Most precise weapons ever developed” should be used here, against gangs in “da hood”. hummm…no objection here!
jasperjava December 10th, 2014 at 6:51 pm
Tell us again how you’re not a racist, you have Black friends, yadda yadda yadda…
Arthur E.D. Dorrough December 10th, 2014 at 7:30 pm
I don’t have negro friends, just negro employees.
Carla Akins December 10th, 2014 at 7:36 pm
You’re done here.
jasperjava December 10th, 2014 at 7:37 pm
I feel sorry for anybody who works for you, or any other nasty racist bigot, no matter what color they are.
Obewon December 9th, 2014 at 10:09 pm
Only GWB & Cheney loving ‘Moroon’s’ don’t recall that the CIA never accurately informed Dems of “TORTURE” on the Senate Intelligence Committee including: (D) Feinstein, nor (D) Clinton. This is only new news to the habitually uninformed and well proven Limbaughtomized dissemblers worshiping faux news, Hannity, et al.
Wayout’s Pope says he’s going to Hell for unrepentantly voting Twice for torturers GWB, Cheney, Rummy, Rice, AG Gonzales & Yoo!
The report said that the CIA routinely went beyond legal limits when interrogating suspects, including the use of waterboarding; that the enhanced interrogation techniques were not effective in getting information from terror suspects; and that the CIA systematically lied to the White House, the Department of Justice and to Congress about the effectiveness of the program in order to keep it going. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/democrats-prepare-to-release-contentious-cia-torture-report/ Election chair for POTUS Cheney in 2016~
Scopedog December 9th, 2014 at 3:42 pm
Bush and Cheney should never have made it to the White House.
fahvel December 9th, 2014 at 3:58 pm
but they did and committed crimes and are now damned near invulnerable.
neworleans878 December 9th, 2014 at 4:30 pm
Former Chilean strongman Augusto Pinochet was indicted by a Spanish judge and arrested in London. Spent a year and a half in British custody before being released back to Chile where he died before he could stand trail there.
With this in mind, bet Bush and Cheney don’t leave American soil for the rest of their lives.
John Henry December 9th, 2014 at 3:54 pm
Reading the details is horrifying. To not take action is even worse. Between this, and police brutality against its citizens, non-action on our part is to admit that the USA is the great monster that “terrorist”claim that we are. We can do better folks.
Wayout December 9th, 2014 at 7:37 pm
This is war, and those people who were interrogated would have no problem against doing barbaric things to us. When those planes went into the Trade Center buildings, many people not killed outright were burned from head to toe and suffered terribly until they died when the buildings collapsed around them. I feel no sympathy whatsoever for those the CIA interrogated they way they did.
OldLefty December 9th, 2014 at 8:05 pm
This is war, and those people who were interrogated would have no problem against doing barbaric things to us.
______
Funny how those who were the most appalled at this were the nazi interrogators.
They know you don’t get reliable info this way.
Wayout December 9th, 2014 at 8:25 pm
Like the CIA guy said, you get a little information here, a little there, and the next thing you know you find out where Bin Laden is.
OldLefty December 9th, 2014 at 9:08 pm
But not with torture, as the Nazi interrogator said.
Also the CIA agent who told us about Hassan Ghul
rg9rts December 10th, 2014 at 5:16 am
Give me a break you loon
allison1050 December 10th, 2014 at 9:06 am
THE SAME TROLL IS HERE!!
whatthe46 December 9th, 2014 at 10:03 pm
“The Oklahoma City bombing was a domestic terrorist bomb attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. Carried out by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, the bombing killed 168 people[1] and injured more than 680 others.[2] The blast destroyed or damaged 324 buildings within a 16-block radius, destroyed or burned 86 cars, and shattered glass in 258 nearby buildings,[3][4] causing at least an estimated $652 million worth of damage.”
*********
we have our own terrorist right here.
Arthur E.D. Dorrough December 10th, 2014 at 11:00 am
….and that’s from just one person that the gov made an enemy.
jasperjava December 10th, 2014 at 2:28 pm
If you’re an enemy of the United States, I suggest you turn yourself in.
Arthur E.D. Dorrough December 10th, 2014 at 2:41 pm
I, and millions of Americans, find the government to be the enemy. The government is an anaconda squeezing the freedoms from a free nation.
Bunya December 10th, 2014 at 7:32 pm
If you think the government “is an anaconda squeezing the freedoms from a free nation”, i gotta admit, they’re doing a piss poor job of it.. Where are those “death panels” we were promised? When’s Obama coming to “take mah guns”?
burqa December 10th, 2014 at 7:26 pm
There once was a time when conservatives had a “core value” of holding people personally responsible for their actions.
burqa December 10th, 2014 at 7:38 pm
Yes, and it took the attack on the Murrah Buiding to get Congress to move on counterterrorism legislation proposed months earlier by Superstar Bill Clinton. The Republican Congress didn’t want to bother with the subject until the bombing on Oklahoma City forced their hand. Even then, they slow-rolled it, and didn’t get a bill on Clinton’s desk until April 24, 1996.
burqa December 10th, 2014 at 6:57 pm
Wayout: “This is war”
That’s what the Founding Fathers said when we began to take on the mighty British empire. On June 20, 1775, the Provincial Congress in New York sent out notices to recruit troops to fight the redcoats. Part of the notice said:
“… let our manners distinguish us from our enemies, as much as the cause we are engaged in.”
“In New York, [George] Washington had wept while watching through a spyglass as the British massacred Americans who had surrendered. But Washington, Fischer writes, “often reminded his men that they were an army of liberty and freedom, and that the rights of humanity for which they were fighting should extend even to their enemies.” To the American officer in charge of 221 prisoners taken at Princeton, Washington said, “Treat them with humanity, and let them have no reason to complain of our copying the brutal example of the British army in their treatment of our unfortunate brethren.””
-from “Our Greatest Christmas,” editorial by George F. Will, Dec. 25, 2004
Again, Wayout, in your post we see your attraction to barbarity.
Back during the Cold War, were you one of those who was proud we didn’t torture and used to criticize the commies because they did?
That’s the moral argument.
Moving to the expedient one, I gotta ask, wouldn’t you prefer we use the most successful methods to interrogate prisoners? I’ve studied the subject and have extensive notes. One thing I’ve paid very close attention to is what trained, professional interrogators have to say on the subject. These are the best experts on what works and what doesn’t. I found over 60 of them who commented on torture and abuse of prisoners and every single one damned torture and abuse of prisoners and said the humane approaches work far better.
Are you so fond of barbarity that you would have our country employ useless, but barbaric interrogation methods over humane ones that uphold our national honor and are more successful?
greenfloyd December 9th, 2014 at 10:12 pm
I think we are doing much better. Without Obama and Democratic leadership in the Senate, this report would have been buried for perhaps decades.
burqa December 10th, 2014 at 6:42 pm
I agree. Not only have we eliminated torture as an officially sanctioned national program, our success shows we didn’t need it.
burqa December 9th, 2014 at 5:23 pm
The Bush legacy will be seen in the image of a butt pyramid.
Obewon December 9th, 2014 at 10:43 pm
‘God told me to invade Iraq’-GWB http://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/oct/07/iraq.usa Iraq never reconstituted WMD’s since Bush Sr’s 1991 invasion and Iraq never attacked us, So Jesus W. Bush blames his illegal war crimes torture on his faith.
fancypants December 9th, 2014 at 10:52 pm
I always thought saddam tried to kill his dad ?
http://youtu.be/OC5dfneoHcE
greenfloyd December 9th, 2014 at 11:01 pm
I wonder if the Senate has any more reports that need to see the light of day, before darkness descends next year?
rg9rts December 10th, 2014 at 5:15 am
LOL ROTFLMAO…..Flawed analysis of the information gathered…Useless…what you mean useless????That was good shait
Arthur E.D. Dorrough December 10th, 2014 at 10:55 am
I just watched a “Alan Colmes” talking point. Alan has no idea what he is talking about.
burqa December 10th, 2014 at 6:40 pm
With all that detail, I see what you mean.
Arthur E.D. Dorrough December 10th, 2014 at 6:56 pm
Not once did he debate the upside. His mind is a steel trap sitting atop of a bag of useless render.
Wayout December 10th, 2014 at 3:48 pm
All you liberals wringing your hands over sleep deprivation and such, try going to the UK Daily Mail and see once again what we are really up against. They have a story today of ISIS goons throwing a man who was accused of being gay from a roof. So if we catch one of those scumbags, do you still want to give them the 5 star treatment?
edmeyer_able December 10th, 2014 at 4:02 pm
Considering most of your cohorts would do the same thing to an LGBT what do you think we should do with them.
Arthur E.D. Dorrough December 10th, 2014 at 4:59 pm
I think the ISIS goons should be turned over to the LGBT!!!
burqa December 10th, 2014 at 6:39 pm
Why do you want to turn this country into a nation behaving like ISIS goons?
Arthur E.D. Dorrough December 10th, 2014 at 4:56 pm
I would turn them over to Apaches for interrogation, not sure of jurisdiction problems though.