The appointment of former Central Intelligence Agency director Michael Hayden to the Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB) and former senator Warren Rudman to the CIA’s External Advisory Board (EAB) will ensure less openness in the intelligence community and more obduracy in the CIA.
Did physicians and psychologists help the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency develop a new research protocol to assess and refine the use of waterboarding or other harsh interrogation techniques? This is the question being raised in a new report by a leading human rights organization. The group says that, if confirmed, it would likely constitute a [...]
It only took 24 hours for the Washington Post to go from the sublime to the ridiculous. On Saturday morning, the newspaper described the mastermind of 9/11, Khalid Sheik Muhammad (KSM), standing before “U.S. intelligence officers in a makeshift lecture hall, leading what they called ‘terrorist tutorials.’”
The lead story in today’s Washington Post, headlined “How a Detainee Became An Asset,” provides a one-sided and distorted account of the torture and abuse of Khalid Sheikh Muhammad (KSM) and demonstrates the urgent need for a blue ribbon bipartisan commission to create a comprehensive and authoritative narrative of the eight years of misgovernment of the Bush administration.
The Washington Post’s David Ignatius simply cannot get off the wheel he spins for the Central Intelligence Agency. Only two days after the release of the 2004 CIA study of the detention and interrogation program, which provides sordid and sadistic details of an illegal and immoral program, Ignatius still opposes any criminal review of the [...]
Former CIA case officer turned author Robert Baer says a probe into the interrogation of terror suspects is necessary to clear the air. He says in the future, interrogating suspects should be left to the FBI or U.S. Military.
John Helgerson, the former CIA inspector general, who conducted a year-long investigation into the agency detention and torture practices, criticized the Obama administration’s decision to redact a crucial section of his report that was declassified Monday. “I am disappointed that the Government did not release even a redacted version of the Recommendations, which described a [...]
CIA Director Leon Panetta has just shown himself to be an apologist of the highest order when it comes to torture-related crimes carried out by agency interrogators and contractors. Panetta issued a statement in advance of the release later Monday of a critical 2004 inspector general’s report on the agency’s torture program. Panetta says the [...]
Nine Republican lawmakers sent a letter to Eric Holder Wednesday saying the U.S. could be attacked by terrorists if the attorney general appoints a special prosecutor to investigate the CIA’s use of torture against alleged terrorists captured in the “war on terror.”
Congressman Jerrold Nadler, D-NY, warned Attorney General Eric Holder that if he decides to authorize a criminal investigation into torture it should not be limited to rogue CIA interrogators, but should also determine whether high-level officials of the Bush administration committed war crimes.
