The CIA has released a heavily redacted 2004 evaluation by its Inspector General John Helgerson of the interrogation techniques the CIA used on captured, high level terrorists. The PDF is here
Question: what have these techniques achieved? Under the effectiveness heading, the report states the following
The detention of terrorists has prevented them from engaging in further terrorist activity, and their interrogation has provided intelligence that has enabled the identification and apprehension of other terrorists, warned of terrorist plots planned for the United States and around the world, and supported articles frequently used in the finished intelligence publications for senior policymakers and war fighters. In this regard, there is no doubt that the Program has been effective….Now, let me get this straight.
….operatives … had plans to detonate a uranium-topped dirty bomb in either Washington, D.C., or New York city….
Agency senior managers believe that lives have been saved as a result of the capture and interrogation of terrorists who were planning attacks….
In an interview, the DCI [Director of the CIA] said he believes the use of EITs [Enhanced Interrogation Techniques] has proven to be extremely valuable in obtaining enormous amounts of critical threat information fro detainees
-The EITs used by the CIA were approved by the Justice Department in detail.
-They were effective in saving lives.
-This was done post 9/11, when there was much concern over more such attacks on the United States.
-There have been no attacks since 9/11.
-The interrogators were acting in good faith.
-The terrorists torture any captured Americans in the most horrible ways, and have no compunction about blowing up men, women, and children wherever gathered, even in churches and schools, or cutting off their heads.
-The terrorists violate every clause of the Geneva Conventions and the laws of war.
Now, the Obama Justice Department is undertaking a special criminal investigation of the CIA agents involved. This will freeze American intelligence activities involving terrorism against us, severely set back American security, and probably financially ruin the agents due to the cost of their defense.
This is an abomination. From low to high, this administration has betrayed the CIA. With full understanding of the meaning of the word, I call it treason.
In full agreement.
ReplyDeleteThe is something deeply sick morally in the fact that mere pro democracy protestors in Iran recieve vastly worse treatment than the most vile terrorists the US has captured and yet this US administration happily ignores their plight in an attempt to appease these unelected regimes.
`Interrogation' or torture? `Treason' or justice? The wholesale slaughter of all non-Americans (or, better yet, all non-Americans and all Americans that are non-white, non-Christian, have household incomes under 60k, are homosexual, or have expressed discontent with the policies of the government of the United States--excluding you, of course) might also save lives (of the remaining people). But you wouldn't advocate that, right? It's curious that the murder rate in the United States is four times higher -- per capita -- than in Britain; who's lives are being saved, exactly? Ah right, but most of those being murdered have low incomes and/or aren't white. I find this diatribe from an `academic' in Hawai'i to be too much; you are the agent of the bully, in a state that knows the outcomes of the United States bully too well. Sorry for the disjointed comment, I'm just so confused by how it is appropriate to imply that the United States Department of Justice should be comparing the CIA's actions with the actions of terrorists when judging the legality of the CIA's actions; I would have thought they should be judged according to American laws and ethical norms.
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