CIA Won’t Defend Its One-Time Torturers -- Shane Harris & Tim Mak, Daily Beast
When the long-awaited ‘Torture Report’ finally drops, don’t expect the CIA to stand up for its interrogation programs—or disavow those controversial efforts.
There may have been bourbon punch and festive lights at the CIA’s holiday party Friday night, but a frosty gloom hung in the air.
As everyone in the agency’s Langley, Va., headquarters knew, the long-awaited “torture report” from the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Democrats was set to drop early the next week, perhaps as soon as Monday morning. It seemed a rather awkward time for a party.
The CIA’s response to the report will be muted. The agency will neither defend the so-called rendition, detention, and interrogation programs. Nor will the CIA disavow those controversial efforts entirely. According to current and former officials familiar with the higher-ups’ thinking, CIA Director John Brennan is likely to keep his powder dry and essentially agree to disagree with the agency’s critics. Even though some CIA employees remain convinced that brutal interrogations of suspected terrorists, including waterboarding, produced useful information that helped prevent terrorist attacks, the agency’s leaders will take no position on whether that information could have been obtained through less coercive means.
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My Comment: The morale at the CIA must be at an all time low.
6 comments:
Why?
The got away with murder.
They just didn't get away with being accused.
They did what they were told to do ... and what was expected from them. And now that the threat has been degraded .... they are being thrown under the bus. That is why morale is low .... and why the ones who are responsible and who signed off on all of this (i.e. the Washington political elite of both parties) .... they are walking away with the CIA as the scapegoat.
If the Establishment Pols think that this over, they have a surprise coming for them.
WNU,
The only person charged and jailed in the case of US torture, is the guy who reported it. And that's the only person who will ever be charged and tried.
The CIA need to suck it up, they got a 2865 page report redacted down to a couple hundred pages, all names removed, they got to spy on and intimidate the Committee,
they got away with murder, and they wern't "just following orders", they were enthusiatic participants.
Jay .... I have no problem with the CIA being held responsible for what they did .... I am focused on the role that their political masters played .... and the fact that many of them are now singing a different tune .... especially when compared to what they were immediately demanding after 9/11.
But here is an easy prediction .... in the event of another 9/11 event (or worse) .... I would not be surprised if the CIA will be given the same orders that they were given after 9/11 .... do what is necessary to stop these guys .... and they will do it with gutso .... and they will be effective .... even if it means being thrown under the bus 10 years later .... again.
But .... as usual .... my gut is telling me that we are missing the big story. While the focus today is on this redacted and heavily censored CIA torture report .... I suspect that the next political storm will be on the CIA assassination program that uses drones and airstrikes on suspected terror targets and threats abroad. This is a far bigger issue than Al Qaeda suspects being water-boarded in some secret location abroad .... in this case we are talking about hundreds ... if not thousands .... of casualties .... with a good chunk of them being civilian. And while on this issue I do expect the political establishment in Washington to ignore the story .... President Obama must be concerned that the court in The Hague (and other foreign legal institutions) may end up indicting him for war crimes .... a legacy that I am sure that he does not want to be remembered for.
Every analisis of the Torture Program I have read, easily disproves the CIA and Advocates claims about the effectiveness of the programs. The CIA has routinely manipulated and lied about the timelines of events and intelligence to manipulate perceptions.
But you are right, Torture will be back, and in a big way. When Nixon was allowed to get away with sabotaging the Vietnam Peace Talks, to win an election, October Surprises became an acceptable Political Maneuver in the US.
As for the drone programs, until drone attacks start to be used to target Americans, in America, engaged in legitimate dissent, there will be no political fall out of any significance. We already know, that for every target of a drone strike, over 1,000 other people are killed, and no outcry.
For American politicians and the American public, drone strikes are too "easy", convenient, low risk ( American lives) and "bloodless",( in the Media), to ever become an issue.
It is only in the Nations underneath the drones, that drone strikes are an issue.
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