Senator Feinstein's Remarks (With Link to Jay Rockefeller's)

DiFi's remarks to the Senate can be found in full here: USA Today - Feinstein's Full Remarks

Excerpts:

First and foremost, I want to excerpt this:

"The work began seven years ago when Senator Rockefeller directed committee staff to review the CIA cables describing the interrogation sessions of Abu Zubaydah and al-Nashiri.

"It's been very difficult. But I believe the documentation and the findings and conclusions will make clear how this program was morally, legally and administratively misguided, and that this nation should never again engage in these tactics.

[...]

"In reviewing the Study in the past few days with the decision looming over the public release, I was struck by a quote, found on page 126 of the Executive Summary. It cites the former CIA Inspector General, John Helgerson, who in 2005 wrote the following to the then-Director of the CIA, which clearly states the situation with respect to this report years later as well: '... we have found that the Agency over the decades has continued to get itself in messes related to interrogation programs for one overriding reason: we do not document and learn from our experience – each generation of officers is left to improvise anew, with problematic results for our officers as individuals and for our Agency.' (Source: E-mail, John Helgerson to Porter Goss, Jan. 28, 2005)"

Over ”decades” the CIA has gotten into “messes” related to “interrogation programs”. Does that not imply that the CIA has been torturing people for decades? And since this was written in 2005, one decade only would put us back to 1995, well before 9/11.

Continuing with Feinstein’s remarks…

"In fact, there is no indication the CIA reviewed its own history — that's just what Helgerson was saying in '05 — with coercive interrogation tactics. As the executive summary notes, the CIA had engaged in rough interrogations in the past.

"In fact, the CIA had previously sent a letter to the Intelligence Committee in 1989, and here is the quote, that "inhumane physical or psychological techniques are counterproductive because they do not produce intelligence and will probably result in false answers." (Source: Letter to the SSCI from John Helgerson, CIA Director of Congressional Affairs, Jan. 8, 1989)

"However, in late 2001 and '02, rather than research interrogation practices and coordinate with other parts of the government with extensive expertise in detention and interrogation of terrorist suspects, the CIA engaged two contract psychologists who had never conducted interrogations themselves or ever operated detention facilities.

[...]

"Releasing this report is an important step to restore our values and show the world that we are in fact a just and lawful society."

Not unless the architects and employers of the torture program are brought to justice.

"In 1990 the United States Senate ratified the Convention Against Torture. The Convention makes clear that this ban against torture is absolute. It says: 'No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, (including [the events on 9/11/2001]) whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.'

"Nonetheless, it was argued that the need for information on terrorist plots after 9/11 made extraordinary interrogation techniques necessary.

"Even if one were to set aside all of the moral arguments, our review was a meticulous and detailed examination of records. It finds that coercive interrogation techniques did not produce the vital, otherwise unavailable intelligence the CIA has claimed.

[...]

"What we have found is that a surprisingly few people were responsible for designing, carrying out, and managing this program. Two contractors developed and led the interrogations. There was little effective oversight."

She does not mention those people who asked for its creation or gave the go-ahead to use this program.

Nevertheless, I have to give the old warmonger due credit for getting up there and bringing out what she did.

The basis for the report:

"The review is based on contemporaneous records and documents during the time the program was in place and active. Now, these documents are important because they aren't based on recollection, they aren't based on revision and they aren't a rationalization a decade later.

"It's these documents, referenced repeatedly in thousands of footnotes, that provide the factual basis for the study's conclusions

"The committee's majority staff reviewed more than 6.3 million pages of these documents provided by the CIA, as well as records from other departments and agencies." 

Why the committee did not conduct interviews:

"In 2009, there was an ongoing review by DOJ Special Prosecutor John Durham.

"On August 24, Attorney General Eric Holder expanded that review. This occurred six months after our study had begun.

"Durham's original investigation of the CIA's destruction of interrogation videotapes was broadened to include possible criminal actions of CIA employees in the course of CIA detention and interrogation activities.

"At the time, the committee's Vice Chairman Kit Bond withdrew the minority's participation in the study, citing the attorney general's expanded investigation as the reason.

"The Department of Justice refused to coordinate its investigation with the Intelligence Committee's review. As a result, possible interviewees could be subject to additional liability if they were interviewed."

I’m not following the explanation, but that may not be her fault. She is obviously referring to CIA employees and torturers. However, she does not give any reason why brutally tortured detainees themselves were not interviewed - or even if they weren't, as reported in some places. And, I’m not sure we should be concerned about additional liability. If they’re liable, they’re liable. Her next statement is confusing.

"And the CIA, citing the attorney general's investigation, would not instruct its employees to participate in our interviews. (Source: classified CIA internal memo, Feb. 26, 2010)

So, did they attempt to interview people? If so, her previous arguments against it don’t make sense.

Anyway…

Regarding the destroyed interrogation tapes:

"Then, on December 7, 2007, the New York Times reported that CIA personnel in 2005 had destroyed videotapes of the interrogation of two CIA detainees: the CIA's first detainee, Abu Zubaydah, as well as 'Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.

[...]

"Director Hayden stated that, if the committee had asked for the videotapes, they would have been provided. But, of course, the committee had not known that the videotapes existed. And we now know from CIA emails and records that the videotapes were destroyed shortly after senior CIA attorneys raised concerns that Congress might find out about the tapes.

[...]

[Then CIA] Director Hayden told the committee that CIA cables related to the interrogation sessions depicted in the videotapes were, and I quote, "a more than adequate representation of the tapes and therefore, if you want them, we'll give you access to them."

[...]

The description in the cables of CIA's interrogations and the treatment of detainees presented a starkly different picture from Director Hayden's testimony before the committee.

"They described brutal, around the clock interrogations, especially of Abu Zubaydah, in which multiple coercive techniques were used in combination and with substantial repetition. It was an ugly, visceral description.

"The summary also indicated that Abu Zubaydah and al-Nashiri did not, as a result of the use of these so-called EITs, provide the kind of intelligence that led the CIA to stop terrorist plots or arrest additional suspects.”

Instead, it led to Colin Powell shaming himself at the UN with untrue “evidence” that necessitated a US invasion of Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with the terrorism in the US, specifically the events of 9/11.

"For the past four months, the Committee and the CIA, the Director of National Intelligence, and the White House have engaged in a lengthy negotiation over [CIA] redactions to the report. We have been able to include some more information in the report today without sacrificing sources and methods or our national security. I'd like to ask following my remarks that a letter from the White House dated yesterday conveying the report, also points out that the report is 93 percent complete and redactions amount to 7 percent of the bulk of the report.”

[...]

[W]e have 20 findings and conclusions, which fall into four general categories:

"First, the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques were not an effective way to gather intelligence information.

"Second, the CIA provided extensive amounts of inaccurate information about the operation of the program and its effectiveness to the White House, the Department of Justice, Congress, the CIA inspector general, the media and the American public.

"Third, the CIA's management of the program was inadequate and deeply flawed.

"And fourth, the CIA program was far more brutal than people were led to believe.

"Let me describe each category in more detail:

You can read her remarks for those.

On the ineffectiveness of torture to produce good information (leaving aside moral or humane objections):

"We took 20 examples that the CIA, itself, claimed to show the success of these interrogations. These include cases of terrorist plots stopped or terrorists captured.

[...]

"In each case, the CIA claimed that critical and unique information came from one or more detainees in its custody after they were subjected to the CIA's coercive techniques, and that information led to a specific counterterrorism success.

"Our staff reviewed every one of the 20 cases, and not a single case holds up.

"In every single one of these cases, at least one of the following was true:

"One, the intelligence community had information separate from the use of EITs that led to the terrorist disruption or capture; two, information from a detainee subjected to EITs played no role in the claimed disruption or capture; and three, the purported terrorist plot either didn't exist or posed no real threat to Americans or U.S. interests.

[...]

"The use of coercive technique methods regularly resulted in fabricated information.

[...]

"What is true is that actionable intelligence that was 'otherwise unavailable' — otherwise unavailable — was not obtained using these coercive interrogation techniques.

"The report also chronicles where the use of interrogation techniques that do not involve physical force were effective.

"Specifically, the report provides examples where interrogators had sufficient information to confront detainees with facts and know when the detainees were lying, and where they applied rapport-building techniques developed and honed by the U.S. military, the FBI, and more recently the interagency High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group, called the 'HIG,' that these techniques produced good intelligence.”

Additional lies from the CIA regarding interrogation techniques:

"In [...] communications to the Department of Justice, the CIA claimed the following: the coercive techniques would not be used with excessive repetition; detainees would always have an opportunity to provide information prior to the use of the techniques; the techniques were to be used in progression, starting with the least aggressive and proceeding only if needed; medical personnel would make sure that interrogations wouldn't cause serious harm, and they could intervene at any time to stop interrogations; interrogators were carefully vetted and highly trained; and each technique was to be used in a specific way, without deviation, and only with specific approval for the interrogator and detainee involved.

"None of these assurances, which the Department of Justice relied on to form its legal opinions, were consistently or even routinely carried out.”

Regarding CIA personnel, contractors and record-keeping…

"[Two] contractors provided the official evaluations of whether detainees' psychological states allowed for the continued use of the enhanced techniques, even for some detainees they themselves were interrogating or had interrogated.

"Evaluating the psychological state of the very detainees they were interrogating is a clear conflict of interest and a violation of professional guidelines.

[...]

"Due to the CIA's redactions to the report, there are limits to what I can say in this regard, but it is clear fact that the CIA deployed officers who had histories of personal, ethical and professional problems of a serious nature.

"These included histories of violence and abusive treatment of others and should have called into question their employment with the United States government, let alone their suitability to participate in a sensitive CIA covert action program.

I might call those folks specially hand-picked.

"In 2005, the two contractors formed a company specifically for the purpose of expanding their work with the CIA. From '05 to '08, the CIA outsourced almost all aspects of its Detention and Interrogation program to the company as part of a contract valued at more than $180 million.

"Ultimately, not all contract options were exercised. However, the CIA has paid these two contractors and their company more than $80 million.

[...]

"Due to poor record keeping, a full accounting of how many specific detainees were held and how they were specifically treated while in custody may never be known.”

My major complaint about DiFi’s statement and the report is the way they remove culpability from everyone outside the CIA in the Bush administration:

"Sometimes, CIA managers and interrogators in the field were uncomfortable with what they were being asked to do and recommended ending the abuse of a detainee. Repeatedly in such cases, they were overruled by people at CIA headquarters who thought they knew better, such as by analysts with no line authority. This shows again how a relatively small number of CIA personnel — perhaps 40 to 50 — were making decisions on detention and interrogation, despite the better judgments of other CIA officers.

[...]

"In another example, the CIA, in coordination with White House officials and staff, initially withheld information of the CIA's interrogation techniques from Secretary of State Colin Powell and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

"There are CIA records stating that Colin Powell wasn't told about the program at first because there were concerns that, and I quote, 'Powell would blow his stack if he were briefed.' (Source: E-mail from John Rizzo dated July 31, 2003)

"CIA records clearly indicate and definitively that — after he was briefed on the CIA's first detainee, Abu Zubaydah — the CIA didn't tell President Bush about the full nature of the EITs until April 2006. That's what the records indicate.

"The CIA similarly withheld information or provided false information to the CIA inspector general during his conduct of a special review by the IG in 2004.

"The CIA similarly withheld information or provided false information to the CIA inspector general during his conduct of a special review by the IG in 2004.

"Incomplete and inaccurate information from the CIA was used in documents provided to the Department of Justice and as a basis for President Bush's speech on September 6, 2006, in which he publicly acknowledged the CIA program for the first time.

"In all of these cases, other CIA officers acknowledged internally — they acknowledged internally — that information the CIA had provided was wrong.

"The CIA also misled other White House officials. When Vice President Cheney's counsel, David Addington, asked CIA General Counsel Scott Muller in 2003 about the CIA's videotaping the waterboarding of detainees, Muller deliberately told him that videotapes "were not being made," but did not disclose that videotapes of previous waterboarding sessions had been made and still existed. (Source: E-mail from Scott Muller dated June 7, 2003)

"There are many, many more examples in the committee's report.

All the blame, according to the report, belongs to the CIA. Perhaps the lion’s share does, but not all by any means.  I also imagine we will soon hear (again) from the CIA that the administration pressured them to come up with information to support its attack on Iraq and to provide info leading to the capture of as many members of al Qaeda as possible.

DiFi’s closing remarks:

"[T]his study is bigger than the actions of the CIA.

"It's really about American values and morals. It's about the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, our rule of law.

"These values exist regardless of the circumstances in which we find ourselves. They exist in peacetime and in wartime. And if we cast aside these values when convenient, we have failed to live by the very precepts that make our nation a great one.

"There is a reason why we carry the banner of a great and just nation. So we submit this Study on behalf of the committee, to the public, in the belief that it will stand the test of time. And with it, the report will carry the message "never again."

Kill the messenger, more like.

Jay Rockefeller's remarks.