photo: All-len-all

The CIA's secret Rendition and Interrogation Program was hidden from the US public for years before being exposed. Lesser known is the fact that CIA officials also kept the White House, Senate, OIG and other agencies of the US government in the dark about the clandestine operation for years.

Partly inspired by fellow researcher Hive account@rebelskum's Steemit archive project, I wish to preserve the major findings of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Report on the Steemit blockchain.

The Committees findings are damning and the CIA went to great lengths to coverup, delay, suppress, obfuscate and deny inquiries into the program. There are also reports that the newly appointed CIA deputy director, Gina Haspel, detroyed video tape interrogations of detainees while working at a CIA black site in Thailand. In 2014, the CIA openly admitted to hacking into the databases containing the Select Committee's investigation and findings.

CIA Torture Report - PDF

For years the CIA's main justification for the rendering and torture (enhanced interrogation) of detainees was that it was necessary to save lives from future terrorist attacks. Those claims were directly refuted by the committee's findings.

The essential findings of the report:

The CIA ran a international torture network

Torture does not produce accurate intelligence

photo: RT

McClatchy - CIA admits it broke into senate computers; senators call for spy chief's ouster

The New Yorker - The Inside War: Dianne Feinstein versus the CIA

The CIA’s use of its enhanced interrogation techniques was not an effective means of acquiring intelligence or gaining cooperation from detainees.

photo: Common Dreams

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Committee Study Of the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program

Findings and Conclusions

1: The CIA’s use of its enhanced interrogation techniques was not an effective means of acquiring intelligence or gaining cooperation from detainees.

2: The CIA's justification for the use of its enhanced interrogation techniques rested on inaccurate claims of their effectiveness.

3: The interrogations of CIA detainees were brutal and far worse than the CIA represented to policymakers and others.

4: The conditions of confinement for CIA detainees were harsher than the CIA had represented to policymakers and others.

5: The CIA repeatedly provided inaccurate information to the Department of Justice, impeding a proper legal analysis of the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program.

6: The CIA has actively avoided or impeded congressional oversight of the program.

7: The CIA impeded effective White House oversight and decision-making.

8: The CIA's operation and management of the program complicated, and in some cases impeded, the national security missions of other Executive Branch agencies.

9; The CIA impeded oversight by the CIA's Office of Inspector General.

10: The CIA coordinated the release of classified information to the media, including inaccurate information concerning the effectiveness of the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques.

11: The CIA was unprepared as it began operating its Detention and Interrogation Program more than six months after being granted detention authorities.

12: The CIA's management and operation of its Detention and Interrogation Program was deeply flawed throughout the program's duration, particularly so in 2002 and early 2003.

13: Two contract psychologists devised the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques and played a central role in the operation, assessments, and management of the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program. By 2005, the CIA had overwhelmingly outsourced operations related to the program.

14: CIA detainees were subjected to coercive interrogation techniques that had not been approved by the Department of Justice or had not been authorized by CIA Headquarters.

15: 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.

16: The CIA failed to adequately evaluate the effectiveness of its enhanced interrogation techniques.

17: The CIA rarely reprimanded or held personnel accountable for serious and significant violations, inappropriate activities, and systemic and individual management failures.

18: The CIA marginalized and ignored numerous internal critiques, criticisms, and objections concerning the operation and management of the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program.

19; The CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program was inherently unsustainable and had effectively ended by 2006 due to unauthorized press disclosures, reduced cooperation from other nations, and legal and oversight concerns.

20; The CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program damaged the United States' standing in the world, and resulted in other significant monetary and non-monetary costs.

Documentation

Apologies: I haven't figured out an easy way to screenshot an entire PDF page properly...tips are welcome;)