Brent Scowcroft Center Senior Adviser Harlan Ullman writes for the Huffington Post on the new report released by the US Senate Select Intelligence Committee:
Last week’s release of the U.S. Senate Select Intelligence Committee report on “enhanced interrogation techniques (EIT’s)” ignited a firestorm registering double figures on any political Richter scale. The report concluded that the CIA had indeed tortured prisoners detained in the war on terror and had misled and lied to Congress about those programs. And, torture, according to the report did not yield much vital information.
Leading the countering Banzai charge was former Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney called the report a load of “crap,” citing both the urgency of preventing future attacks and the government’s “legal” justification for applying these techniques. Five former CIA Directors used more civil language in criticizing the report written by Democratic staffers who purposely chose not to interview any CIA personnel in this process.
First a digression: I have been subjected to extreme forms of EIT’s. I also was strapped to a table while a hole was cut in my stomach to insert a tube. Both were torture by any name.