CIA report details 'brutal' post-9/11 interrogations

[Lady Vizsla]

Quote:

The CIA carried out "brutal" interrogations of al-Qaeda suspects in the years after the 9/11 attacks on the US, a US Senate report has said.

The summary of the report, compiled by Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that the CIA misled Americans about what it was doing.

The information the CIA collected this way failed to secure information that foiled any threats, the report said.

In a statement, the CIA insisted that the interrogations did help save lives.

"The intelligence gained from the programme was critical to our understanding of al-Qaeda and continues to inform our counterterrorism efforts to this day," Director John Brennan said in a statement.

However, the CIA said it acknowledged that there were mistakes in the programme, especially early on when it was unprepared for the scale of the operation to detain and interrogate prisoners.

The programme - known internally as the Rendition, Detention and Interrogation programme - took place from 2002-07, during the presidency of George W Bush.

Article

[ZodiacMouse]

brutal? i feel ashamed they should just tortured them... what sort of people got working in there? it's a black organization for a reason... to do black things!! it's good to be evil once in awhile!!!

[Nyadriel]

A report I heard on CBS is that they had also lied to Congress

It did save lives? I wanna see proof of that. Somebody had an agenda that was not in saving lives. That is what a strong feeling I have had since the news first broke out about this nonsense. Now that feeling is stronger than ever.

[JamesWN]

So, no details on what exactly the brutal methods were, or what?

[Chibi Halo]

And people all over Facebook are saying that we shouldn't have released the report, that this is going to cause all of our overseas installations to be attacked, and that if we didn't torture these detainees then who would. The thing to take away from all of this is the following. First, detainees who are being tortured will not give us factual and proper information. They will lie in order to get our operatives to stop with the torture. They will tell operatives what they believe what we want to hear from them in order to survive. So how can we trust that we have the proper intelligence on targets because of these torture methods. Second, operatives were told to threaten rape and murder of detainees' families in order to gain information from them. Is hanging things like slitting throats and raping women over the heads of detainees really the way to gain information from them? It puts us back in point one.

Third, we're out there condemning other countries that use tactics like this on their prisoners. It turns us into hypocrites if we go around telling other countries what they're doing is wrong if we're gong around doing the same thing. What's worse is that we're doing these things at secret black sites in countries that are considered to be our allies. How would people in Poland and Germany feel once they learn that our CIA had a black site where we carried out horrible torture within their borders? Hell, how do you think the people of MAINE now feel knowing one of their airports was use as a CIA black site for torture? Finally, do people not realize that what we're doing goes against the rulings of the Nuremberg Trials? Do they not see that these methods are considered illegal by international standards?

And on top of that the CIA kept the President (Bush at the time of these atrocities) out of the loop. They never told him or key members of his administration what they were doing. And when Abu Graib happened Bush believed it was just those nine who were convicted of using illegal torture methods when the problem was far worse. The sad thing is, the same thing is happening where our drone program is concerned. The White House is being told only parts of the truth about what we're doing with this program. If this cycle of lies and deceit is happening all over again it's only going to come and bite us in the a**.

Here's the thing, what we got today wasn't the actual report but a 500 plus page summary of the entire six thousand plus paged report that is still classified. We don't know all the details of the full report nor will we ever but what has been summarized from it is pretty damn disturbing.

[darth acheron]

Chibi Halo

And people all over Facebook are saying that we shouldn't have released the report, that this is going to cause all of our overseas installations to be attacked, and that if we didn't torture these detainees then who would. The thing to take away from all of this is the following. First, detainees who are being tortured will not give us factual and proper information. They will lie in order to get our operatives to stop with the torture. They will tell operatives what they believe what we want to hear from them in order to survive. So how can we trust that we have the proper intelligence on targets because of these torture methods. Second, operatives were told to threaten rape and murder of detainees' families in order to gain information from them. Is hanging things like slitting throats and raping women over the heads of detainees really the way to gain information from them? It puts us back in point one.

Third, we're out there condemning other countries that use tactics like this on their prisoners. It turns us into hypocrites if we go around telling other countries what they're doing is wrong if we're gong around doing the same thing. What's worse is that we're doing these things at secret black sites in countries that are considered to be our allies. How would people in Poland and Germany feel once they learn that our CIA had a black site where we carried out horrible torture within their borders? Hell, how do you think the people of MAINE now feel knowing one of their airports was use as a CIA black site for torture? Finally, do people not realize that what we're doing goes against the rulings of the Nuremberg Trials? Do they not see that these methods are considered illegal by international standards?

And on top of that the CIA kept the President (Bush at the time of these atrocities) out of the loop. They never told him or key members of his administration what they were doing. And when Abu Graib happened Bush believed it was just those nine who were convicted of using illegal torture methods when the problem was far worse. The sad thing is, the same thing is happening where our drone program is concerned. The White House is being told only parts of the truth about what we're doing with this program. If this cycle of lies and deceit is happening all over again it's only going to come and bite us in the a**.

Here's the thing, what we got today wasn't the actual report but a 500 plus page summary of the entire six thousand plus paged report that is still classified. We don't know all the details of the full report nor will we ever but what has been summarized from it is pretty damn disturbing.

I couldn't agree more. This just makes us look like hypocrites since the US has been very strong in condemning torture around the globe.

[Kaiser Khorosho]

I hear people ALL THE TIME talking about how ISIS and terrorists must suffer and die a horrible death, but when some are TORTURED alluvasudden its the most horrible and inhumane thing ever. If they don't play by the rules, why should we? Military insurgency is one thing, soldiers fighting soldiers, but behind closed doors? M said is best in Casino Royale.

They don't care WHAT we do they care about us getting filmed doing it. ALL governments in the world do this. I'm sure America trained some of our allies' interrogators too. It won't stop, ever. Countries will continue to torture behind closed doors for information. Its what's been done for thousands of years.

[azulmagia]

Here's a summarized version of the highlights of the report:

Quote:

1. The CIA put hummus in a detainee's rectum

2. Interrogators forced detainees to stand on broken feet

3. CIA interrogators threatened to sexually assault the mother of a detainee

4. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded at least 183 times

5. KSM and Abu Zubaydah nearly drowned to death during some of their torture sessions

6. Abu Zubaydah lost his left eye in CIA custody

7. The CIA conducted torture sessions knowing they'd worsen detainees' injuries

8. Detainees were kept awake for as long as 180 hours — over a week

9. CIA interrogators broke down a detainee until they judged him "clearly a broken man"

10. The interrogations probably killed at least one person

11. The CIA tortured people before they even tried asking them to cooperate

12. CIA interrogators objected to the torture but were told to keep going by senior officials

13. At least 26 out of 119 known detainees were wrongfully held

14. The CIA lied to the White House about the effectiveness of torture

15. The CIA refused to vet participants in the torture program who had admitted to sexual assault

16. They refused to impose disciplinary sanctions on an interrogator involved in a detainee's death

(link)

Oh, and not only that, at least two people tortured were not only innocent, they were the CIA's own informants.

This isn't even the full report. The full report is like 6,000 pages long and God knows when that'll be released.

All in all, this is VERY damning. And the worst of it is, is that it's still questionable that anyone will go to jail over this. This isn't a case of "going against America's values," as Obama put it. These were bona fide criminal actions. "CIA officers also threatened at least three detainees with harm to their families. Those threats included doing harm to the children of a detainee, threats to sexually abuse the mother of a detainee and to "cut" a detainee's mother's throat." (link) Exactly HOW the ******** can any of this s**t be legal.

IMO, the CIA has to be abolished. And it's not just the torturers need to go to jail, but Bush, Cheney, the director of the CIA and the guy who drafted the torture legal memos too.

If you want to read the Senate summary, here it is:

http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/study2014/sscistudy1.pdf

[Silvia Crow]

Interesting that this report comes out so close to the whole Jonathan Gruber thing about Obamacare.

Smokescreen much?

[Sage Treesong]

They are terrorists, they deserve it.

[Chibi Halo]

The more we hear about this the more it sounds less like torture and more like conditioning. Abu Zubaydah was so broken down through waterboarding and sleep deprivation in a box shaped like a coffin that he snapped mentally (not in the psychotic sense but in the less of a recognizable human sense). He is the real world version of the Game of Thrones character who was so broken and conditioned by his captor that he believes he's a completely different person. He's not that far gone but all someone has to do around him is raise their eyebrow and snap their fingers twice and he gets into a position to be waterboarded. He's been conditioned to be waterboarded on command. People want this man tried or sent back. The government claims he's too dangerous to be released. He can't be put on trial because the CIA broke him down so much he's mentally unfit to stand trial. The man who was asked to defend him said when he met with Zubaydah he was met by a broken individual that he knew there was no way he could stand trial. To know we're doing this to people and that there are those out there that say we have to continue to do this because ISIS is out there beheading and torturing captured Westerners and opposition forces and that if we don't do it who will is sickening.

[azulmagia]

Sage Treesong

They are terrorists, they deserve it.

So you defend doing this out of sadism, given that there is no proof that even one life was saved because of "information" extracted out of torture, nor even one terrorist attack was prevented due to same?

[Chibi Halo]

Sage Treesong

They are terrorists, they deserve it.

Okay then, let's put you alone in a box with no outside stimulation for several months and then chain you facing a wall with your head forced low, and possibly even covered so you can't see who's coming, half naked as a tube is shoved up your rectum as far as it can go and pureed food and nutrition drinks are shot into your colon as your only means of getting sustenance during the day and see if you say that you deserved it. I bet you wouldn't after the first time it happened to you.

[Ringoringa]

Sometimes I just need to take a little break from reading the news before I spend the rest of my day mulling on how terrible and hopeless humanity is as a species, and how deeply ashamed I am to be called a part of it. This is one of those times. Sickening though it is, I can't say I'm surprised. This is mostly just official confirmation of what has been suspected for a long time. If this puts us in danger overseas, then maybe your first priority ought to be straightening out the system to ensure that this s**t can't happen ever again. But then, that would be the SENSIBLE thing to do, and we can't have THAT, now, can we?

Torture is not only MORALLY wrong in every way, but it's completely and utterly useless, and anyone who says otherwise is a freaking idiot. People being tortured will say whatever they have to in order to make the pain stop, true or not. You will NOT get dependable information via torture. This is not only common sense, but it has been proven time and time again. To say this is like saying water is wet, or the sky is blue. It is an objective fact of nature.

[azulmagia]

Ringoringa

Torture is not only MORALLY wrong in every way, but it's completely and utterly useless, and anyone who says otherwise is a freaking idiot.

It's also INCREDIBLY ILLEGAL UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW.

Don't believe me?

Quote:

The United States knows quite a bit about waterboarding. The U.S. government — whether acting alone before domestic courts, commissions and courts-martial or as part of the world community — has not only condemned the use of water torture but has severely punished those who applied it.

After World War II, we convicted several Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American and Allied prisoners of war. At the trial of his captors, then-Lt. Chase J. Nielsen, one of the 1942 Army Air Forces officers who flew in the Doolittle Raid and was captured by the Japanese, testified: “I was given several types of torture. . . . I was given what they call the water cure.” He was asked what he felt when the Japanese soldiers poured the water. “Well, I felt more or less like I was drowning,” he replied, “just gasping between life and death.”

Nielsen’s experience was not unique. Nor was the prosecution of his captors. After Japan surrendered, the United States organized and participated in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, generally called the Tokyo War Crimes Trials. Leading members of Japan’s military and government elite were charged, among their many other crimes, with torturing Allied military personnel and civilians. The principal proof upon which their torture convictions were based was conduct that we would now call waterboarding.

.....

As a result of such accounts, a number of Japanese prison-camp officers and guards were convicted of torture that clearly violated the laws of war. They were not the only defendants convicted in such cases. As far back as the U.S. occupation of the Philippines after the 1898 Spanish-American War, U.S. soldiers were court-martialed for using the “water cure” to question Filipino guerrillas.

(link)

And more on the urgent necessity to prosecute the people responsible for these crimes:

Ben Emmerson

It is now time to take action. The individuals responsible for the criminal conspiracy revealed in today’s report must be brought to justice, and must face criminal penalties commensurate with the gravity of their crimes.

The fact that the policies revealed in this report were authorised at a high level within the US Government provides no excuse whatsoever. Indeed, it reinforces the need for criminal accountability.

.....

International law prohibits the granting of immunities to public officials who have engaged in acts of torture. This applies not only to the actual perpetrators but also to those senior officials within the US Government who devised, planned and authorised these crimes.

As a matter of international law, the US is legally obliged to bring those responsible to justice. The UN Convention Against Torture and the UN Convention on Enforced Disappearances require States to prosecute acts of torture and enforced disappearance where there is sufficient evidence to provide a reasonable prospect of conviction. States are not free to maintain or permit impunity for these grave crimes.

.....

It is no defence for a public official to claim that they were acting on superior orders. CIA officers who physically committed acts of torture therefore bear individual criminal responsibility for their conduct, and cannot hide behind the authorisation they were given by their superiors.

However, the heaviest penalties should be reserved for those most seriously implicated in the planning and purported authorisation of these crimes. Former Bush Administration officials who have admitted their involvement in the programme should also face criminal prosecution for their acts.

President Obama made it clear more than five years ago that the US Government recognises the use of waterboarding as torture. There is therefore no excuse for shielding the perpetrators from justice any longer. The US Attorney General is under a legal duty to bring criminal charges against those responsible.

Torture is a crime of universal jurisdiction. The perpetrators may be prosecuted by any other country they may travel to. However, the primary responsibility for bringing them to justice rests with the US Department of Justice and the Attorney General.

(link)

You guys need to move heaven and earth to make sure this happens. Seriously. And you need to make willingness to prosecute torture offenses a litmus test in the next elections. Hillary Clinton needs especially to be backed against a corner on this.