Here's a link to the full report (PDF)
A classified U.S. Senate report found that the CIA's legal justification for the use of harsh interrogation techniques that critics say amount to torture was based on faulty legal reasoning, McClatchy news service reported on Thursday.
The Central Intelligence Agency also issued erroneous claims about how many people it subjected to techniques such as simulated drowning, or "water boarding," according to the news service, citing conclusions from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report obtained by McClatchy.
The report also concluded that the CIA used interrogation methods that were not approved by its own headquarters or the U.S. Justice Department, impeded White House oversight and actively evaded oversight both by Congress and its own Inspector General.
The CIA also provided false information to the U.S. Justice Department, which used that information to conclude that the methods would not break the law because those applying them did not specifically intend to inflict severe pain or suffering, the report added.
Human rights activists called for the immediate declassification of the entire document.
"The report's findings appear to show that the CIA systematically misled Congress, the White House, and the Department of Justice about its brutal and unlawful interrogation program," said Raha Wala, senior counsel at Human Rights First in Washington.
The Committee’s complete list of findings follows.
The CIA’s use of enhanced interrogation techniques did not effectively assist the agency in acquiring intelligence or in gaining cooperation from detainees.
The CIA repeatedly provided inaccurate information to the Department of Justice, impeding a proper legal analysis of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program.
The CIA subjected detainees to interrogation techniques that had not been approved by the Department of Justice or had not been authorized by CIA Headquarters.
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.
The CIA inaccurately characterized the effectiveness of the enhanced interrogation techniques to justify their use.
The CIA’s use of enhanced interrogation techniques was brutal and far worse than the agency communicated to policymakers.
The conditions of confinement for CIA detainees were brutal and far worse than the agency communicated to policymakers.
The CIA impeded effective White House oversight and decision-making.
The CIA has actively avoided or impeded congressional oversight of the program.
The CIA impeded oversight by the CIA’s Office of Inspector General.
Numerous internal critiques and objections concerning the CIA’s management and use of the Detention and Interrogation were ignored.
The CIA manipulated the media by coordinating the release of classified information, which inaccurately portrayed the effectiveness of the agency’s enhanced interrogation techniques.
The CIA was unprepared as it began operating its Detention and Interrogation Program more than six months after being granted detention authorities.
The way in which the CIA operated and managed the program complicated, and in some cases hindered the national security missions of other Executive Branch agencies.
Management of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program was deeply flawed throughout its duration, particularly so in 2002 and 2003.
Two contract psychologists devised the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques and were central figures in the program’s operation.
By 2005, the CIA had overwhelmingly outsourced operations related to the program. The effectiveness of the enhanced interrogation techniques was not sufficiently evaluated by the CIA.
CIA personnel who were responsible for serious violations, inappropriate behavior, or management failures in the program’s operation were seldom reprimanded or held accountable by the agency.
The CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program ended by 2006 due to legal and oversight concerns, unauthorized press disclosures and reduced cooperation from other nations.
The CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program damaged the United States’ global reputation, and came with heavy costs, both monetary and nonmonetary.
Jay Bybee and John Yoo working for the Justice Department during the Presidency of George W. Bush wrote the Torture Memos which gave legal justification and cover for the C.I.A to torture prisoners they believed involved in the attacks of 11 September 2001. Even though torture is clearly illegal not only under U.S. law but the Geneva Conventions which govern the treatment of prisoners of war and to which America is a signatory that didn't stop the Bush administration from violating the rights of those prisoners or the law.
Standards of Conduct for Interrogation under 18 U.S.C. sections 2340-2340A[edit]
Jay Bybee, then Assistant U.S. Attorney General and head of the OLC, addressed a memorandum to Alberto Gonzales,[7] then counsel to the president, dated August 1, 2002, titled "Standards for Conduct for Interrogation under 18 U.S.C. 2340-2340A". He was responding to the president's reported request for a legal opinion on the U.N. Convention Against Torture and 18 U.S.C. section 2340 and the interrogation of al Qaeda operatives.[8]
This is the primary "torture memo", which defines the Department of Justice's (DOJ) interpretation of torture. It is relied upon heavily by the subsequent "torture memos". It discusses the language of the torture statute (18 U.S.C. sections 2340-2340A) in detail in order to derive its definition of torture, states that "cruel, inhuman, or degrading" treatment is not torture according to that statute; and examines "possible defenses that would negate any claim that certain interrogation methods violate the statute". It concludes that torture is only: extreme acts according to the Convention Against Torture; that severe pain (a requisite for this definition of torture) is "serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death"; that prolonged mental harm is harm that must last for "months or even years"; that "prosecution under Section 2340A may be barred because enforcement of the statute would represent an unconstitutional infringement of the President's authority to conduct war"; and that "under the current circumstances, necessity or self-defense may justify interrogation methods that might violate Section 2340A."
Part I[edit]
Part one, in which the text and history of the U.S. torture statute (18 U.S.C. 2340-2340A) is examined, mainly addresses Bybee's interpretation of the definition of torture, including the definition of severe physical and mental pain or suffering.
In the first section, the memorandum states that the statute requires specific intent (the convention only requires general intent, but the "specific intent" language is found in the U.S. ratification reservation), and in citing case law, precedent states that specific intent means that "the infliction of [severe] pain must be the defendant's precise objective" and reminds the reader that "general intent" requires only actions that would be reasonably likely to result in a violation of the statute.[9]The article concludes that, "even if the defendant knows that severe pain will result from his actions, if causing such harm is not his objective, he lacks the requisite specific intent". It suggests that a jury would likely act contrary to law (out of misunderstanding) by finding such an individual guilty regardless.
In the second section, the memo admits difficulty in finding any clear definition for the "severe pain or suffering" required by the torture statute (which is also required by the UN Convention). After examining the definition provided in various dictionaries, it concludes that "pain" is synonymous with "suffering" ("it is difficult to conceive of such suffering that would not involve severe physical pain"), and, selecting among the many definitions, the memo proposes that severe pain must be difficult to endure (some definitions quoted in the memo define severe pain as "inflicting discomfort"). In searching for a reference to the term in other U.S. statutes and law, it quotes from a health care law that defines "emergency condition", but merely mentions "severe pain" in passing. That statutory subsection, 8 U.S.C. section 1395w-22(d)(3)(B), defines an emergency condition as a condition "manifesting itself by acute symptoms of sufficient severity (including severe pain) such that [one] ... could reasonably expect the absence of immediate medical attention to result in placing the health of the individual ... in serious jeopardy, serious impairment to bodily functions, or serious dysfunction of any bodily organ or part".
The memorandum concludes with a narrow definition of torture, that its "severe pain" must necessarily be pain associated with "death, organ failure, or serious impairment of body functions". It also states that the statute requires "prolonged mental harm" to accompany mental or physical pain, and that "prolonged" means a duration of months or years.
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