We Learned a Lot From the Senate Torture Report. Including What We Still Don鈥檛 Know.
The executive summary of the Senate torture report, released last December, exposed a system of abuse that was far more brutal than the CIA ever admitted to the White House, Congress, the courts, or the American public. But for all its revelatory, gruesome details, it also revealed more about what we don鈥檛 know.
The 525-page summary released by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence references documents detailing secret legal defenses for torture, attempts at covering up illegality, indications of dissent from within the CIA, and more. To fill in the blanks, we filed a Freedom of Information Act request today for 77 documents, most of which are referenced in the report.
The 老澳门开奖结果 has previously acquired and made public redacted versions of some of those documents (see, for example, that were released to us in April 2009). Others have been totally hidden from Americans and deserve to see the light. We鈥檙e submitting this new request because we think the public is entitled to a full account of what happened in the CIA鈥檚 black sites, and why.
Some details about the still-withheld documents are provided in the Senate鈥檚 report and give us a partial understanding as to what the documents contain. In one email referenced by the Senate report, Director of the CIA鈥檚 Counterterrorism Center Jose Rodriguez instructed CIA personnel to suppress their doubts about the legality of the so-called 鈥渆nhanced interrogation techniques鈥 used on detainee Abu Zubaydah. Personnel involved in Abu Zubaydah鈥檚 torture wrote headquarters that they believed his interrogations were 鈥渁pproach[ing] the legal limit.鈥
Rodriguez responded:
[I] strongly urge that any speculative language as to the legality of given activities or, more precisely, judgment calls as to their legality vis-脿-vis operational guidelines for this activity agreed upon and vetted at the most senior levels of the agency, be refrained from in written traffic. Such language is not helpful.
Another classified email, written by CIA torture contractor James Mitchell, provides a glimpse of President Bush鈥檚 鈥渄iscomfort鈥 with an 鈥渋mage of a detainee, chained to the ceiling, clothed in a diaper, and forced to go to the bathroom on himself.鈥
According to the Senate report, the still-withheld documents also tell another story: one about those within the government who objected to torture even when it tarnished their reputations or derailed their careers. One email referenced in the Senate report was written by the CIA鈥檚 chief of interrogations after he received the interrogation plan for Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a former CIA detainee currently being held at Guant谩namo Bay. The CIA chief wrote that he would 鈥渘o longer be associated in any way with the interrogation program due to serious reservation[s]鈥 and that he would be 鈥渞etiring shortly.鈥 Among other things, the report quotes him as writing, "[t]his is a train wreck [sic] waiting to happen and I intend to get the hell off the train before it happens."
The 老澳门开奖结果 has worked to expose the details of the torture program for more than a decade. As a result of our previous FOIA requests and ensuing litigation, the government has released more than . But while the 老澳门开奖结果 has received a great deal of information on the Department of Defense鈥檚 torture of detainees, some of the critical documents relating to the CIA鈥檚 torture program have remained partially or fully hidden. Our fight for transparency continues with this request, along with our ongoing battles for the release of the SSCI鈥檚 full 6,900-page report and photographic evidence of torture in two separate cases pending before federal appeals courts.
The release of the executive summary should be a turning point 鈥 not the endpoint 鈥 for transparency.