CIA Torture Techniques Come To Light

CIA misled on interrogation program, Senate report says. "A report by the Senate Intelligence Committee concludes that the CIA misled the government and the public about aspects of its brutal interrogation program for years -- concealing details about the severity of its methods, overstating the significance of plots and prisoners, and taking credit for critical pieces of intelligence that detainees had in fact surrendered before they were subjected to harsh techniques. The report, built around detailed chronologies of dozens of CIA detainees, documents a long-standing pattern of unsubstantiated claims as agency officials sought permission to use -- and later tried to defend -- excruciating interrogation methods that yielded little, if any, significant intelligence, according to U.S. officials who have reviewed the document."

"Current and former U.S. officials who described the report spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue and because the document remains classified. The 6,300-page report includes what officials described as damning new disclosures about a sprawling network of secret detention facilities, or 'black sites,' that was dismantled by President Obama in 2009. Classified files reviewed by committee investigators reveal internal divisions over the interrogation program, officials said, including one case in which CIA employees left the agency's secret prison in Thailand after becoming disturbed by the brutal measures being employed there. The report also cites cases in which officials at CIA headquarters demanded the continued use of harsh interrogation techniques even after analysts were convinced that prisoners had no more information to give. The report describes previously undisclosed cases of abuse, including the alleged repeated dunking of a terrorism suspect in tanks of ice water at a detention site in Afghanistan -- a method that bore similarities to waterboarding but never appeared on any Justice Department-approved list of techniques." Greg Miller, Adam Goldman and Ellen Nakashima in The Washington Post.

Feinstein moves to make the report public. "Sen. Dianne Feinstein is racing toward declassification of a long-awaited report which sharply criticizes the CIA's Bush-era interrogation policies and disputes the agency's claims that the tough tactics helped foil terrorist plots.The Senate Intelligence Committee chairwoman said Monday that she plans to hold a committee vote Thursday to make public the key findings and summary of the full 6,300-page report, which the panel has been working on for five years." Burgess Everett and Josh Gerstein in Politico.

Another revelation: Enhanced tactics didn't help U.S. nab Osama bin Laden. "A hotly disputed U.S. Senate torture report concludes that waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods provided no key evidence in the hunt for Osama bin Laden, according to congressional aides and outside experts familiar with the investigation. The CIA still disputes that conclusion. From the moment of bin Laden's death almost three years ago in what was America's biggest counterterrorism success, former Bush administration and some senior CIA officials have cited the evidence trail leading to the al-Qaida mastermind's compound in Pakistan as vindicating the 'enhanced interrogation techniques' they authorized after the September 11, 2001, attacks. But Democratic and some Republican senators have disputed that account." Bradley Klapper in the Associated Press.