The Failed Coverup of the CIA Torture Report
September 10, 2016 11:00 AM   Subscribe

Inside the fight to reveal the CIA's torture secrets. "The first part of the inside story of the Senate investigation into torture, the crisis with the CIA it spurred and the man whose life would never be the same."

Part 2: 'A constitutional crisis': the CIA turns on the Senate. "Tensions flare between the CIA and the Senate in the fight to release the report on torture – leading the agency to spy on its own legislative overseers."

(Part 3: "The aftermath" will be published tomorrow.)

Senate investigator breaks silence about CIA's 'failed coverup' of torture report. "Daniel Jones, the man at the center of landmark Senate report, goes public for the first time about the investigation that led to the CIA spying on him.
The Guardian’s findings, to be published in three installments [...] include:

• How Jones was so afraid the CIA would destroy important evidence, that he covertly removed from a CIA location a classified document, later described as a “smoking gun” by a senator on the committee ;

• A decision that left the investigation of extradjudicial transfers of terror suspects into the hands of foreign intelligence services practically lost to history;

• One of Obama’s most senior aides insisted the Senate obscure a finding that some CIA interrogators who operated at black sites around the world after 9/11 had been accused of domestic abuse and even sexual assault;

• Senators were prepared to suppress the report amid national security concerns, until intelligence chief James Clapper provided the committee with a “farce” of an analysis predicting that its publication would lead to chaos and violence around the world.
Via Charles Pierce: This CIA Torture Story Is the Best Example of Our Post-9/11 Failings. Read this report. Read it now.

Related posts: CIA Torture Report Released; Prosecute Torturers and Their Bosses; "Brennan wanted to destroy the report."; Brennan: "I apologize for the actions of CIA officers"
posted by homunculus (19 comments total) 44 users marked this as a favorite
 
Mod note: A few comments deleted. Let's rewind this and start off without the generalized zingers about who cares about this and who doesn't. Plenty to talk about in the actual links.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 11:30 AM on September 10, 2016 [4 favorites]


The deeper, more endemic problem lies in a CIA, assisted by a White House, that continues to try to cover up the truth. The CIA misled not just George W Bush on torture, but also Obama. This is John Brennan’s CIA, Obama’s CIA, ... They’re providing inaccurate information to the president of the United States in the present day.

Pretty sure this isn't a new development, but stomach-turning nonetheless.

Also, why is it this in-depth reporting always seems to come from the Guardian? Where are the American investigative reporters?
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 11:51 AM on September 10, 2016 [8 favorites]


Where are the American investigative reporters?

Hanging out with the present king of France.
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:53 AM on September 10, 2016 [9 favorites]


Where are the American investigative reporters?

Spencer Ackerman is an American.
posted by homunculus at 12:08 PM on September 10, 2016 [2 favorites]


This CIA Torture Story Is the Best Example of Our Post-9/11 Failings. Read this report. Read it now.

Good link but I think "Worst" should be swapped in for "Best". Yeah, it's just semantics, but ...
posted by philip-random at 12:12 PM on September 10, 2016


Spencer Ackerman is an American.

Yeah, I'm sure they've got US reporters, but the NYT, WaPo, Globe, etc. aren't breaking the stories.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 12:22 PM on September 10, 2016


No one is going to jail for this, of course, but what seems unspoken through the Guardian pieces was how the CIA is almost a branch of government unto itself, one that spans and effectively supersedes presidents and legislators, and the Constitutional authority they are supposed to have.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 12:32 PM on September 10, 2016 [11 favorites]


What these articles show is that the CIA tortures people because the interrogators and the hierarchy of the CIA enjoy the torture, rather than for any intelligence purpose.
posted by v-tach at 1:10 PM on September 10, 2016 [15 favorites]


They probably would prefer working for a certain Orange President, who wouldn't cover things up but instead declare his public pride in our torture.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:30 PM on September 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


"The degree of civilization in a society is revealed by entering its prisons." - Dostoevsky

Nicely averted by the CIA by making sure their prisons and what goes on in them are secret. Kudos to the investigators and journalists managing to get this information out.
posted by dazed_one at 2:11 PM on September 10, 2016 [7 favorites]


You can't handle the truth!
posted by adept256 at 2:44 PM on September 10, 2016 [1 favorite]


Ten Years of Injustice: Over 90 Percent of Gitmo Detainees Imprisoned for over a Decade
There is also the not insignificant matter of the detainees’ torture. Nashiri and all of the five 9/11 accused were tortured by the CIA, as detailed in the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the CIA’s interrogation and detention program. This continues to taint the government’s prosecutions at Guantanamo, and will certainly factor into the inevitable appeals.
Obama ‘not ready to concede’ Guantanamo will stay open
posted by homunculus at 3:58 PM on September 10, 2016 [6 favorites]


I can handle the truth even when I lie to myself. I can forgive lies in the face of truth.
I no longer believe the lies I tried to sell and seek no longer to handle them.
I will lie at some point and pray wisdom will handle that.

It's the constitution of conviction that
keeps and shapes and fails.
The will is shone upon capture.

No one thinks to ask. No-one has the constitution to escape conviction from shadow and geography.

Neo-Schrecklichkeit welt.
posted by clavdivs at 4:11 PM on September 10, 2016 [2 favorites]


They probably would prefer working for a certain Orange President, who wouldn't cover things up but instead declare his public pride in our torture.

No, they're quite comfortable with either Ms. Clinton or Mr. Trump. Some of the same people mentioned prominently in this series are either advising the Clinton campaign or are its public surrogates. They will continue to be employed and promoted through the bureaucracy until they leave with comfortable retirements. They will never, ever be held accountable for their criminality.
posted by indubitable at 5:13 PM on September 10, 2016 [6 favorites]


“At the back of the report, for what we called the ‘tapes investigation’, the staff created a chart that depicted the most torturous 17 days of Abu Zubaydah’s interrogation. It was almost a minute-by-minute chronology of what the CIA was doing to Abu Zubaydah, and how Abu Zubaydah reacted,” recalled Rockefeller.

“I think everyone on the committee – Democrat and Republican alike – was quite taken by this section of the report. It was hard to deny the ineffectiveness of the CIA interrogations, the brutality, or the fact that the committee had been deeply misled by the CIA.”
My bold, because...Jesus Christ. I weep for my country.
posted by MonkeyToes at 5:37 PM on September 10, 2016 [4 favorites]




For the record, part 3 of Spencer Ackerman's series for the Guardian:

No looking back: the CIA torture report's aftermath. The CIA attacks the Senate’s published findings on torture, a report that was the result of six years of work by Daniel Jones. Now he sets out to defend it.
posted by MonkeyToes at 7:52 AM on September 11, 2016 [2 favorites]






« Older "What is UP with that CAT?!"   |   Eleven days Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments