Senate Intelligence Committee Releases Torture Report - CIA Program Was Brutal and Ineffective

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence releases a 525-page executive summary of its comprehensive investigation into the CIA’s detention and interrogation program, revealing that the program was far more brutal, widespread, and ineffective than the CIA disclosed. The report, based on a five-year investigation of more than 6 million CIA documents, conclusively demonstrates that enhanced interrogation techniques constituted torture under international law, failed to produce actionable intelligence, and were accompanied by systematic lies to Congress, the White House, the Justice Department, and the American public. Senator Dianne Feinstein declares the program a “stain on our values and on our history.”

The report documents that at least 119 individuals were held in CIA custody between 2002 and 2008, with at least 26 detained “wrongfully” based on mistaken identity or insufficient evidence. The torture was even more severe than previously acknowledged: interrogators used waterboarding that rendered Abu Zubaydah “completely unresponsive, with bubbles rising through his open, full mouth”; forced “rectal feeding” and “rectal rehydration” as punishment; held detainees in ice baths and forced standing positions until their legs swelled; threatened sexual abuse of detainees’ mothers; and kept prisoners shackled in painful stress positions while naked in freezing cells. At least five detainees suffered from hallucinations, paranoia, insomnia, and attempted self-mutilation. One detainee died of hypothermia while chained nearly naked in a CIA black site.

The committee finds that CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques “were not an effective means of obtaining accurate information or gaining detainee cooperation.” Detainees subjected to torture frequently fabricated information to make the torture stop, providing false leads that the CIA nevertheless pursued as high-priority intelligence. The most significant counterterrorism successes attributed to the program by the CIA—including information leading to Osama bin Laden—were actually obtained before torture was applied or through other intelligence means. The report identifies numerous cases where detainees provided valuable intelligence through standard interrogation methods, only to stop cooperating once torture began.

The CIA systematically misrepresented the program’s effectiveness to policymakers and Congress. CIA Director John Brennan and other officials provided false testimony claiming torture produced vital intelligence that prevented terrorist attacks. Internal CIA communications reveal officials knew the program was failing to produce useful intelligence while publicly defending its necessity. The CIA also deliberately understated the brutality of techniques, concealed the number of detainees, destroyed videotape evidence, and provided inaccurate information to the Justice Department that influenced OLC legal opinions authorizing torture.

Despite the report’s devastating findings, no prosecutions or criminal charges result. President Obama states the report reinforces his decision to end the program but maintains his policy of not prosecuting those involved. CIA Director Brennan refuses to characterize the techniques as torture and defends CIA personnel, while former officials like Dick Cheney declare they would authorize the program again. The full 6,700-page classified report remains unreleased, and the CIA fights legal efforts to preserve all copies. The Senate torture report stands as the definitive documentation of systematic U.S. war crimes, yet illustrates the complete impunity enjoyed by those who authorized, implemented, and lied about torture. No country has been willing to exercise universal jurisdiction to prosecute U.S. officials for these documented war crimes, demonstrating how powerful nations evade international law.