Who Will Call For Release Of CIA Report On Torture’s Effectiveness?
So here’s the next question: Which politicians who claim to want classified info on whether torture has worked will call for the release of a classified CIA report that is said to have concluded that there’s no proof that torture stopped any terror attacks?
As McClatchy reported on Friday, the recently released torture memos allude in passing to a 2004 report by the CIA inspector general which found that it couldn’t be determined whether torture helped thwart any specific imminent attacks. This report, which directly contradicts Dick Cheney’s claims, has been obtained by the ACLU through litigation, but has been so redacted that it’s basically useless.
The question now is who will call for its release in less redacted form, now that the torture memo release has created a precedent for it — something that could go a long way towards settling the questions at hand.
The report itself is right here. Take a look at this bit from the table of contents (click to enlarge):
As you can see, the report contains an entire section on the “effectiveness” of the torture techniques. In the report itself, this whole section has been blacked out. As for what it says, all we have is the word of Bush lawyer Steven Bradbury, who wrote in one of the recently released torture memos that this report says that “it is difficult to determine conclusively whether interrogations provided information critical to interdicting specific imminent attacks.”
You’d think that anyone who claims to want to settle the question of whether torture works would call for the release of this report along with any other classified info that’s out there. Will any Republicans call for its release? Will Democrats? Seems worth asking.
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Greg
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There is another question also. Who will start asking about al Nashiri who was also waterboarded? Remember that they always focus on KSM and Zubaydah when trying to make the case for torture. But in that IG report it states Nashiri was also waterboarded. So what happens when you waterboard a guy and don’t get ANY information? Isn’t that one incident enough to be criminal, even by the pro torturist standard because it didn’t yield any information that “saved lives”?
this seems interesting:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTEzMjc3YWU3ZmJiNzA3NThhNjdiMmY4MD
kzNjRlMDY=
is this info public? anyone know?is it based on classified info?
Greg, are there really any “politicians who claim to want classified info on whether torture has worked”? I think there are only politicians who want classified info showing that torture has worked.
Greg
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That link doesn’t go to an article at the corner.
Greg–read the Issikoff piece on Soufan this weekend it was *he* who got the information from Zubayda *without* torture. So Thiessen is as usual full of it.
sorry, guys. here’s the link
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTEzMjc3YWU3ZmJiNzA3NThhNjdiMmY4MDkzNjRlMDY=
g
Greg
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Theissen uses a Deputy Atty General’s words as facts and thats how he builds his narrative. The question that comes to mind for me about Thiessen is why is anybody taking the guy seriously when it comes to national security anyway? Wasn’t he just a speech writer? Wasn’t it his JOB to spin stories for Bush and Cheney? What kind of unique perspective is he supposed to have that anyone should listen to him?
Liz Cheney did the same thing as Thiessen in her interview on MSNBC. The secretive Dick Cheney is getting awfully reckless in his unauthorized releases of classified information. Glad it is not going unnoticed.
My question is the same as yours, Greg. Where did all that information come from? On the one hand, it’s so specific that it reminds me of something Gabriel Garcia Marquez said about magical realism, that you can tell somebody to look at the elephants in the sky and they’ll just laugh at you. But if you tell them there are 76 elephants in the sky, everyone will look. On the other hand, the specificity–regardless of whether things fit an actual timeline–suggests access to classified documents. Can you ask Thiessen to show you his sources?
Greg
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I think you want to see this because it directly refutes Thiessen.
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http://www.newsweek.com/id/195089/output/print
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