“President Trump last night in an interview repeatedly asserted that torture works. This is false. The Senate Intelligence Committee’s report lays this out in excruciating detail. The architect of the 9/11 attacks was water boarded 183 times and didn’t provide any actionable intelligence that we didn’t already have. As the committee detailed, he also fabricated extensive misinformation under torture. Facts are stubborn things, even for presidents.”
The report’s conclusion with regard to the false claim that torture is effective follows:
Senate Intelligence Committee Study on CIA Interrogation and Detention
Conclusion: The CIA’s coercive interrogation techniques were not effective.
- At no time did the CIA’s coercive interrogation techniques lead to the collection of imminent threat intelligence, such as the hypothetical “ticking time bomb” information that many believe was the justification for the use of these techniques.
- The committee reviewed 20 of the most frequent and prominent examples of purported counterterrorism “successes” that the CIA has attributed to the use of its enhanced interrogation techniques. Each of those examples was found to be wrong in fundamental respects. In some cases, there was no relationship between the claimed counterterrorism “success” and any information provided by a CIA detainee during or after the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques.
In the remaining cases, the CIA inaccurately represented that unique information was acquired from a CIA detainee as a result of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques, when in fact the information was either (a) acquired from the CIA detainee prior to the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques or (b) corroborative of information already available to the intelligence community from sources other than the CIA detainee, and therefore not unique or “otherwise unavailable,” which was the standard for effectiveness the CIA presented to the Department of Justice and policymakers.
- The methods in question—which were based on discredited coercive interrogation techniques such as those used by torturous regimes during the Cold War to elicit false confessions—regularly resulted in fabricated information. During the brutal interrogations, the CIA was often unaware the information was fabricated, leading CIA officers or contractors to falsely conclude that they were acquiring unique or actionable intelligence when they were not.
- Internally, CIA officers regularly called into question the effectiveness of the CIA’s interrogation techniques, noting how the techniques failed to elicit detainee cooperation or produce accurate intelligence.
- The CIA acknowledges that it never adequately reviewed the effectiveness of its enhanced interrogation techniques, despite a recommendation by the CIA inspector general to do so and similar requests by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and the leadership of the Senate Intelligence Committee. After the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques failed to elicit information from the last detainee in CIA custody in 2007, a CIA review team internally concluded that future CIA interrogations should incorporate more rapport-building techniques and that the CIA should conduct research on interrogation techniques used by other U.S. government agencies.
Related:
Intelligence Committee Members to President Trump: Read The 2014 Torture Report
January 26, 2017 - “To avoid making the mistakes of the past, it is of the utmost importance” that Executive Branch review the full 6,700-page Committee report before considering resumption of detention and interrogation activities
Washington—Democrats on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence today urged President Trump to read the classified version of the Committee’s 2014 report on the CIA detention and interrogation program before considering the possible resumption of such activities.
Intelligence Committee members Vice Chairman Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Angus King (I-ME), Joe Manchin (D-W.V.), and Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) joined the letter.
“To avoid making the mistakes of the past, it is of the utmost importance that you familiarize yourself with, and ensure that any Executive Branch officials involved in the formation of detention and interrogation policy review, the full Committee Study,” wrote the senators.
The full text of the letter is below. A copy of the signed letter is available here.
January 26, 2017
The President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President:
In your January 25, 2017, interview with ABC News, you stated that you were considering the resumption of torture. These statements, and press reports that your administration is considering an Executive Order to review the possible resumption of CIA detention and interrogation activities, as well as changes to the Army Field Manual, are profoundly troubling. Moreover, they highlight the critical importance of disseminating within the Executive Branch the full Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Study of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program. On December 10, 2014, the Study was transmitted to the White House, the DNI, the CIA, the CIA Inspector General, the FBI, and the Departments of Justice, Defense and State.
The full Study, which is over 6,700 pages long and includes approximately 38,000 footnotes citing mostly the CIA’s own documents, is a thorough, fact-based documented history of the program. It was, and remains, a critical resource for anyone considering detention and interrogation policy. As was stated in the transmittal letter, “the full report should be made available within the CIA and other components of the Executive Branch for use as broadly as appropriate to help make sure that this experience is never repeated.” The transmittal letter also specifically encouraged the use of the full report in the development of any future guidelines and procedures.
Both the Director of the CIA and the nominee to be attorney general have committed to reviewing the full Study. Director Pompeo, during his confirmation process, wrote, “If confirmed, I will be happy to review parts of the classified Study relevant to the position of DCIA and the SSCI.” Senator Sessions committed that he would ensure that he and other “appropriate officials are fully briefed on the contents of the report to the extent it is pertinent to the operations and mission of the Department of Justice.” To avoid making the mistakes of the past it is of the utmost importance that you familiarize yourself with, and ensure that any Executive Branch officials involved in the formation of policy on detention and interrogation review, the full Committee Study.
Thank you for your attention to this important matter.
Sincerely,
cc:
Mr. Michael Dempsey, Acting Director of National Intelligence
The Honorable Mike Pompeo, Director, Central Intelligence Agency
The Honorable Sally Q. Yates, Acting Attorney General
The Honorable James Mattis, Secretary of Defense
The Honorable Thomas A. Shannon, Jr., Acting Secretary of State
The Honorable James B. Comey, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Honorable Christopher Sharpley, Acting CIA Inspector General
Source: Senator Dianne Feinstein
