US Senate Committee Report on CIA Tuesday Dec 09,2014

 

The Senate committee's report runs to more than 6,000 pages, drawing on huge quantities of evidence, but it remains classified and only a 525-page summary has been released

The US Senate Intelligence Committee has released a summary of a report into the CIA interrogation program established by US spy chiefs after the terror attacks of 11 September 2001.

The full report is 6,000 pages long and the unclassified summary is 480 pages - but it highlights 20 key findings.
What did the Senate committee find out?

 
1) The CIA's use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" was not an effective means of acquiring intelligence or gaining co-operation from detainees.
2)The CIA's justification for the use of its enhanced interrogation techniques rested on inaccurate claims of their effectiveness.
3) The interrogations of CIA detainees were brutal and far worse than the CIA represented to policymakers and others.
4) The conditions of confinement for CIA detainees were harsher than the CIA had represented to policymakers and others.
5) The CIA repeatedly provided inaccurate information to the Department of Justice, impeding a proper legal analysis of the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program.
6) The CIA has actively avoided or impeded congressional oversight of the programme.
7) The CIA impeded effective White House oversight and decision-making.
8) The CIA's operation and management of the programme complicated, and in some cases impeded, the national security missions of other executive branch agencies.
9) The CIA impeded oversight by the CIA's Office of Inspector General.
10) The CIA co-ordinated the release of classified information to the media, including inaccurate information concerning the effectiveness of the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques.
11) The CIA was unprepared as it began operating its Detention and Interrogation Program more than six months after being granted detention authorities.
12) The CIA's management and operation of its Detention and Interrogation Program was deeply flawed throughout the programme's duration, particularly so in 2002 and early 2003.
13) Two contract psychologists devised the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques and played a central role in the operation, assessments, and management of the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program. By 2005, the CIA had overwhelmingly outsourced operations related to the programme
14) CIA detainees were subjected to coercive interrogation techniques that had not been approved by the Department of Justice or had not been authorised by CIA headquarters.
15) The CIA did not conduct a comprehensive or accurate accounting of the number of individuals it detained, and held individuals who did not meet the legal standard for detention. The CIA's claims about the number of detainees held and subjected to its enhanced interrogation techniques were inaccurate.
16) The CIA failed to adequately evaluate the effectiveness of its enhanced interrogation techniques.
17) The CIA rarely reprimanded or held personnel accountable for serious and significant violations, inappropriate activities, and systemic and individual management failures.
18) The CIA marginalised and ignored numerous internal critiques, criticisms, and objections concerning the operation and management of the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program.
19) The CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program was inherently unsustainable and had effectively ended by 2006 due to unauthorised press disclosures, reduced cooperation from other nations, and legal and oversight concerns.
20) The CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program damaged the United States' standing in the world, and resulted in other significant monetary and non-monetary costs.

 Details of harsh interrogation techniques used by the CIA on suspected terrorists have been made public by the US Senate Intelligence Committee

Shortly after the attacks on 11 September 2001, the CIA drew up a list of new interrogation techniques that included sleep deprivation, slapping, subjection to cold and simulated drowning, known as "waterboarding".
Waterboarding involves a prisoner being restrained on his back with their feet at a level higher than their head, or tied upside down. A cloth is placed over the prisoner's face or pushed into their mouth. Sometimes plastic film is used.
Water is then poured on to their face and into their nose and mouth. The prisoner gags almost immediately as the water starts entering the lungs.
As they start to feel they are drowning, they typically panic and struggle, and their body goes into spasm. Waterboarding can result in brain damage, broken bones and psychological damage.


CIA interrogations: Post-9/11 timeline

17 September 2001: President George W Bush authorises CIA to detain suspected terrorists
August 2002: Abu Zubaydah, a Saudi terror suspect, subjected to persistent "coercive interrogation", including waterboarding
November 2002: Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri transferred to CIA custody and subjected to waterboarding.
March 2003: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, suspected 9/11 mastermind, captured - later waterboarded 183 times
2 November 2005: Washington Post reveals existence of global CIA interrogation programme
8-9 November 2005: CIA authorises destruction of "coercive interrogation" videotapes
September 2006: President Bush publicly acknowledges the programme for the first time
March 2008: President Bush vetoes legislation to limit CIA interrogation techniques.
January 2009: President Barack Obama bans the CIA's detention authority and limits interrogation to techniques authorised by the Army Field Manual.