By Cliff Montgomery – Apr. 29th, 2012
The Senate Intelligence Committee has worked for four years on “the only comprehensive in-depth look at the facts and documents pertaining to the creation, management, and effectiveness of the CIA detention and interrogation program,” Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) has said.
Sen. Rockefeller was the Intelligence Committee chairman when the study began in 2008. So it’s been around for a while…and this essential review still is not finished.
That should give people some idea of how things work in D.C. Lawmakers quickly work to uncover the sexual habits of Secret Service agents, but spend several years on a study of CIA torture techniques…
But finally there is some good news to report on the CIA torture study.
“The review itself is nearing completion — before the end of summer — but is not over yet,” a Committee spokesperson told the press.
“The release date should be not too far thereafter, but is not set,” added the spokesperson.
And the report apparently promises to be a rather thorough document.
“Committee staff are said to have reviewed millions of pages of classified documents pertaining to the CIA program,” stated the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy, a leading watchdog.
In a November 29th, 2011 floor statement that hasn’t received much attention in the corporate press, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) — who serves as the current head of the Senate Intelligence Committee — gave Americans a tantalizing glimpse of the panel’s findings on CIA torture and detention practices.
“As chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, I can say that we are nearing the completion a comprehensive review of the CIA’s former interrogation and detention program, and I can assure the Senate and the Nation that coercive and abusive treatment of detainees in U.S. custody was far more systematic and widespread than we thought,” declared Sen. Feinstein.
“Moreover, the abuse stemmed not from the isolated acts of a few bad apples but from the fact that the line was blurred between what is permissible and impermissible conduct, putting U.S. personnel in an untenable position with their superiors and the law,” Feinstein added.
“We cannot have it both ways. Either we make clear to the world that the United States will honor our values and treat prisoners humanely, or we let the world believe that we have secret interrogation methods to terrorize and torture our prisoners,” concluded Sen. Feinstein.
