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Senate Torture Report Bombshell: CIA Lied to Lawmakers, Used Techniques More Brutal Than Claimed

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The US Senate Intelligence Committee just released a report, five years in the making, on post-911 torture techniques used by the Central Intelligence Agency, which examines the contents of six million internal CIA documents. According to The New York Times, the report noted that the CIA often misled congressional and White House officials about the effectiveness of the techniques that were being used, the level of brutality of those techniques, and what information the techniques actually produced. Based on twenty case studies examined in the report, investigators concluded that enhanced interrogation techniques were not as effective as less brutal methods when it came to providing useful information that could be used to stop a terror plot.

The CIA is responding to the 6000-page report, released to the public in a 500-word executive summary, by digging its heels in, claiming that its techniques are effective and that the report is flawed and a poor representation of the techniques that have been used. The New York Times quoted a CIA statement on the matter, which said “There are too many flaws for it to stand as the official record of the program.”

According to the report, detainees were subjected to a stomach-churning onslaught of torture methods. CIA agents used the harshest techniques possible without first trying to obtain information through less-aggressive means. Some detainees were deprived of sleep in uncomfortable positions for up to 180 hours. Waterboarding was used more frequently than the CIA originally admitted, with some detainees being subjected to the technique over and over again for “days or weeks at a time.” One detainee died of hypothermia. Five detainees were forced to undergo rectal feeding and rectal hydration, absent any medical need, as a form of torture. Detainees were threatened with death, sexually abused, and told that their families would be killed and/or sexually abused. According to The Daily Beast, an interrogator told a detainee that he would not get a trial because “we can never let the world know what I have done to you.”

Twitter user Andrew Blake posted a series of screenshots from the report, seen below, which highlight some of the more extreme methods that were used by interrogators.

Richard Walker, an anchor for DW, also published a tweet which compiled the 20 findings of the Senate torture report in one screenshot, seen below.

In a speech about the report cited by CNN, Senator Diane Feinstein said, “The release of this 500-page summary cannot remove that stain, but it can and does say to our people and the world that America is big enough to admit when it’s wrong and confident enough to learn from its mistakes.”