The report by a Senate committee of the U.S. Congress that said the Central Intelligence Agency used inhuman and cruel methods on terror suspects is damning enough, but it would not have served its purpose if those who carried out the torture and authorised it get away scot-free. Many of the methods mentioned have been in the public realm. It is well known that under a programme of ‘rendition’, the CIA was spiriting away suspects to countries where U.S. laws on interrogation would not apply, such as Syria, Thailand or Poland, and subjecting them to techniques such as waterboarding. Yet, the report is shocking in its detail of these and other “enhanced interrogation techniques”, including one described as “rectal feeding”. CIA employees who questioned the techniques were overruled. Torture led to the death of at least one suspect and caused permanent physical damage to others. At least 26 of those subjected to the methods had been wrongly detained. Put together by Democrat members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, the report was released after five years of work. It concludes that the EITs resulted in no vital intelligence, and refutes suggestions that they led the CIA to Osama bin Laden. The White House and the CIA made several efforts to stop the report from coming out. Committee chairman Dianne Feinstein has said she was swayed at times by the argument that it might give an upper hand to forces that were out to destroy America, but that she realised her country would stand taller for accepting that it had done wrong. Ms. Feinstein pushed it out just before the Democrats hand over control of the Senate to the Republicans.
Predictably though, the report has seen a partisan divide, with Republican members rejecting it. It has also spurred many to come to the CIA’s defence, including a former head of the agency, and former Vice-President Dick Cheney, who authorised many of the brutal techniques. He said last week that he “would do it again in a minute”. President George Bush, in whose administration these practices came to acquire currency, also defended them. The U.S. has always been accused of double standards when it comes to human rights, of preaching from the rule book to other countries, while proceeding to ignore those rules itself. That accusation is bound to grow louder. President Barack Obama, who had prohibited torture by an executive order in 2009, has acknowledged the CIA’s methods had done “significant damage to America’s standing in the world and made it harder to pursue our interests with allies and partners”. It is going to stay that way as he is unlikely to be able to punish the perpetrators.
