Senate Investigation of Bush-Cheney-Era Torture

[Tony Nuspl]

In December 2012, the Intelligence Committee completed its 6,300-page review of the Bush administration’s torture programs. The public has not seen this report, as it remains classified, but it has been described as “searing” and highly critical of the CIA and the Bush administration.

More than a decade ago, in 2002, the Bush administration authorized the CIA to begin detaining terror suspects and subjecting them to “enhanced interrogation techniques”—measures that most people now recognize with the less sanitary word: torture.

For years, members of the Senate Intelligence Committee were unaware of this program, save the chair and vice chair. The full committee was abruptly informed of the program by then-CIA Director Michael Hayden in September 2006, only hours before President Bush announced the existence of the program to the public. About a year later, The New York Times reported that the CIA was destroying videotapes of the first “enhanced” interrogations conducted by the agency.

Will the Senate Intelligence report on Bush-era torture ultimately be declassified? Underlying this constitutional crisis is a desire by many at the CIA to sweep the Bush-era torture abuses under the rug.

In the wake of her revelations on Tuesday, Senator Dianne Feinstein renewed her desire to declassify the Senate report. “We’re not going to stop. I intend to move to have the findings, conclusions and the executive summary of the report sent to the president for declassification and release to the American people,” she said, and suggested the findings will shock the public. “If the Senate can declassify this report, we will be able to ensure that an un-American, brutal program of detention and interrogation will never again be considered or permitted.”

Obama has long said he supports declassification, and it seems it will happen soon.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/178792/senate-investigation-bush-era-...