The CIA used sexual threats, waterboarding and other harsh methods to interrogate terrorism suspects and all were ineffective at eliciting critical information, according to a US Senate report due to be released on Tuesday.
The report on government-sanctioned interrogation at sites around the world for questioning captured al Qaeda and other militants prompted the United States to warn its facilities abroad to shore up security in case of violent reactions, reports Reuters.
Sources familiar with the document said it includes graphic details about techniques the Central Intelligence Agency used in the years after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
The sources said tactics meant to force detainees to divulge information on terrorist plots and cells went beyond the techniques authorised by White House, CIA and lawyers working for President George W. Bush’s Justice Department.
Cases in which CIA interrogators threatened one or more detainees with mock executions, a practice never authorised by Bush administration lawyers, are documented in the report, the sources said.
It concludes that harsh interrogations did not produce a single critical intelligence nugget that could not have been obtained by non-coercive means. Former CIA and government leaders, including former US vice president Dick Cheney, dispute that conclusion.
The report describes how al Qaeda operative Abdel Rahman al Nashiri, suspected mastermind of the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, was threatened with a buzzing power drill, the sources said. The drill was never actually used on him.
It documents how at least one detainee was sexually threatened with a broomstick, the sources said.
It was unclear whether the report would lead to further attempts to hold those involved accountable. The legal statute of limitations has passed for many of the actions.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Monday that President Barack Obama supported making the document public “so that people around the world and people here at home understand exactly what transpired.”
The executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, Anthony Romero, said in an opinion piece in The New York Times that Obama should issue formal pardons to senior officials and others to make clear that these actions were crimes and help ensure that “the American government never tortures again.”
Added security
Preparing for a worldwide outcry from the publication of the graphic details, the White House and US intelligence officials said on Monday they had beefed up security of US facilities worldwide.
The report, which took years to produce, charts the history of the CIA’s “Rendition, Detention and Interrogation” program, which former US President Bush authorised after the September 11 attacks.
Bush ended many aspects of the program before leaving office, and Obama swiftly banned “enhanced interrogation techniques,” which critics say are torture, after his 2009 inauguration.
Two Republican lawmakers issued a statement calling the release of the report “reckless and irresponsible.” Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the Intelligence Committee, is due to make the report public in a Senate floor speech.
“We are concerned that this release could endanger the lives of Americans overseas, jeopardise US relations with foreign partners, potentially incite violence, create political problems for our allies, and be used as a recruitment tool for our enemies,” senators Marco Rubio and Jim Risch said.
Senator Angus King, an independent, told CNN releasing the report was important because it could persuade a future president not to use these techniques.
CIA braces for wholesale changes
CIA Director John Brennan is weighing a dramatic overhaul of the leading US spy agency that is likely to meet fierce opposition from veteran agents, current and former intelligence officials said last Thursday.
The reorganisation would dismantle the long entrenched separation between spying and analysis divisions in the agency, possibly replacing them with units focused on geographic areas or specific threats, said ex-intelligence officials familiar with the review.
In a September 24 message to employees of the Central Intelligence Agency, Brennan said it was time “we take a close and honest look at ourselves” and examine whether the spy service needed to be restructured.
“I have mentioned several times over the past year that I have become increasingly convinced that the time has come to take a fresh look at how we are organised as an agency and at whether our current structure, and ways of doing business, need adjustment to ensure our future success,” Brennan said in the message, portions of which were released to reporters.
The shake-up being contemplated would be “by far the most sweeping change in the organisation and culture of the CIA in its history,” said Bruce Riedel, a former agency officer.
“This would be a reorganisation that fundamentally alters decades of how the organisation has worked,” said Riedel, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Brennan in late September asked several experienced intelligence officers “to conduct an in-depth review to determine whether the agency is optimised for enduring mission effectiveness, specifically in the areas of integration, agility and resilience,” CIA spokesman Dean Boyd said.
Boyd said the officers carrying out the review are still “in the information gathering stage” and it was soon to say what possible options might be in play.
