Trump Is Trying To Hide The Landmark 2014 CIA Torture Report — Here's What Was In It
ERASING HISTORY
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At the request of top Republicans, the Trump administration is returning copies of the 6,700 page CIA torture report from 2014 to Congress. Only the executive summary of the report has been made public, leaving much of it under cover. 

The Report Could Now Be Locked Away Forever, Exempt From Government Records Laws

The Trump administration's move, described by multiple congressional officials, raises the possibility that copies of the 6,700-page report could be locked in Senate vaults for good — exempt from laws requiring that government records eventually become public. The C.I.A., the office of the Director of National Intelligence and the C.I.A.'s inspector general have returned their copies of the report, the officials said.

[The New York Times]

The Report Revealed Disturbing Methods Of Torture

The report by the Senate Intelligence Committee delivers new allegations of cruelty in a program whose severe tactics have been abundantly documented, revealing that agency medical personnel voiced alarm that waterboarding methods had deteriorated to "a series of near drownings" and that agency employees subjected detainees to "rectal rehydration" and other painful procedures that were never approved.

[The Washington Post]

It Also Revealed That The CIA Misled The White House And Congress About Its Interrogation Techniques

It looked at more than 6 million pages of CIA material over the course of more than three years, and it came to two major conclusions: The CIA misrepresented the interrogation techniques it was using at secret prisons abroad, and it also overstated the techniques' efficacy. The report details the techniques used on detainees and found that those interrogations led to no useful intelligence.

[NPR]

The Report Condemned The 'Enhanced Interrogation' Techniques And Ruled Them To Be Ineffective

The report condemns the use of techniques such as waterboarding, concluding that they were "not an effective means of acquiring intelligence" and repeatedly caused detainees to give false information. Perhaps most controversially, it says the information obtained by the program did not contribute to the successful mission to kill Osama bin Laden.

[The Hill]

The CIA And Top Republicans Rejected The Judgements Made In The Report

When the report was released, the CIA and top Republicans attempted to dismiss it. The ranking senator on the Intelligence Committee, Saxby Chambliss, at the time released a response with five Republican colleagues saying the report, written by Democratic members of the committee, contained "significant analytical and factual errors."

The CIA also rejected the report in a 136-page memo, saying:

 "[T]he Agency disagrees with the Study's unqualified assertions that the overall detention and interrogation program did not produce unique intelligence that led terrorist plots to be disrupted, terrorists to be captured, or lives to be saved."

[CNN]

<p>Benjamin Goggin is the News Editor at Digg.&nbsp;</p>

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