CIA chief defends interrogation techniques

CIA Director John Brennan defended his agency’s post-9/11 interrogation techniques following a Senate-issued report that it had tortured terrorist suspects in the wake of 9/11 with no security benefits to the U.S.

Although Brennan admitted that some of the CIA’s interrogation techniques were “harsh” and “abhorrent”, he insisted that they had done “most things right” at a time when there were “no easy answers”.

“Our reviews indicate that the detention and interrogation programme produces useful intelligence that helped the United States thwart attack plans, capture terrorist and save lives,” Brennan told a press conference at the CIA headquarters. “However, the cause-and-effect relationship between the use of enhanced interrogation techniques and useful information subsequently provided by the detainee is, in my view, unknowable.”

A damning Senate report issued on Tuesday said that the CIA’s “brutal” interrogation techniques in the wake of 9/11 were ineffective in the USA’s fight against terrorism. The techniques included waterboarding, sleep deprivation, mock burials, and humiliation. Inmates were restrained by their wrists for extended periods of time and were kept in dark cells for most of their incarceration. Brennan was a senior CIA official in 2002 when the CIA’s detention and interrogation programme was implemented.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, who chaired the committee that produced the report, called for torture to be outlawed and rejected Brennan’s arguments.

“Brennan: ‘unknowable’ if we could have gotten the intel in other ways. Study shows it IS knowable: CIA had info before torture. #ReadThe Report,” she said in a tweet.

George W. Bush, who was President during the interrogation programme, has not yet commented on the report but his Vice-President at the time Dick Cheney has spoken out against the Senate report.

“The men and women of the CIA did exactly what we wanted,” he said. “We said we’ve got to go use enhanced techniques…and we’re going to find out. We’ve got Khaled Sheikh Mohammed who’s the mastermind of 9/11 and he is in our possession, we know he’s the architect. And what are we supposed to do? Kiss him on both cheeks and say please tell us what you know? Of course not..”

The United Nations and human rights organisations have called for the prosecution of US officials involved in the interrogation programme. However, an unnamed justice department told the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday that prosecutors had read the report and “did not find any new information” to reopen investigations into the mistreatment of detainees.