Staff Writer
A
United States Senate report on torture released this Tuesday shows that the C.I.A.’s
torture methods following 9/11 were more extreme and inefficient than they had
previously disclosed. The report details
many brutal interrogation tactics, including starvation, mock executions, and a
technique referred to as “rectal-feeding”.
Threats of murder and rape were used to extract information. The director of the C.I.A., George J. Tenet,
apparently misled members of the White House and Congress. The agency underreported the amount of
torture and detention that was taking place.
Prior
to the report’s release, the C.I.A. had only acknowledged that three prisoners
had been water boarded, but the report shows that the actual number is far
greater. The interrogation program
wasn’t managed properly, and officials who tried to prevent the extreme
techniques were ignored and overridden by senior personnel. There were many prisoners that were
wrongfully held as well, with 26 or more detainees not meeting the proper
standards for imprisonment. According to
the report, the extreme methods were not as successful as the C.I.A. previously
stated. The C.I.A. even leaked false
information to journalists and released information that made the success rate
for torture seem higher than it actually was.
These
revelations are reviving concerns about torture in a post-9/11 world. Huge controversy has formed in the past over
the way that the United States has used interrogation against terrorists or
supposed terrorists. This new
information could potentially lead to prosecution of the officials involved in
the torture. Previous Vice President
Dick Cheney, who was in office while the tortures were taking place, has
defended the interrogation program, calling it “…justified.” Ben Emmerson, the United Nations Special
Rapporteur on counter terrorism and human rights, believes that top members of
the Bush Administration should be prosecuted.
“It is now time to take action. The individuals responsible for the
criminal conspiracy revealed in today’s report must be brought to justice, and
must face criminal penalties commensurate with the gravity of their crimes,”
said Emmerson. President Barack Obama
has condemned the interrogations, saying that “…anybody who was doing the kinds
of things that are described in the report would not simply be keeping
something from me, they would be directly violating the orders that I've issued
as president and commander-in-chief."
