That is the spin we are getting on it:
"Ex-CIA officials decry no access to detainee study" by Ken Dilanian | Associated Press July 27, 2014
ASPEN, Colo. — About a dozen former CIA officials named in a classified Senate report on decade-old agency interrogation practices were notified in recent days that they would be able to review parts of the document in a secure room in suburban Washington after signing a secrecy agreement.
Then, on Friday, many were told they would not be able to see it after all.
Some of them were furious, while Democratic Senate aides were angry that they were given the chance in the first place.
It's like one of those FBI letters they might put out on you, or NSA spying the telecomm can't talk about, these poor fellas.
It is the latest chapter in the drama and recriminations that have been playing out behind the scenes in connection with what some call the Senate torture report, a summary of which is being declassified and is expected to be released in the coming weeks.
Torture behind the scenes.
‘‘I am outraged,’’ said John Rizzo, one of the former officials who was offered, and then refused, a chance to see the summary report before publication. He retired in 2009 as the CIA’s top lawyer after playing a key role in the interrogation program.
‘‘They are accusing people of misleading Congress, of misleading the Justice Department, and they never even asked to talk to us,’’ he said. ‘‘And now they won’t let us read the report before it is made public.’’
You can read it with the rest of us and maybe recognize your redacted self.
Former CIA officials, including George J. Tenet, the agency’s former director, believe the report contains distortions and are trying to discredit it.
Didn't he call the WMDs in Iraq a slam dunk? If he says its distorted and is trying to discredit, it must be pretty accurate and credible.
The 6,300-page report, along with a CIA rebuttal, represents the most detailed accounting to date of a set of bitterly controversial interrogation, rendition, and detention practices the CIA carried out in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks — practices many Americans now consider to have been immoral or illegal.
President Obama stopped the practices when he took office, but he decided against a ‘‘truth commission’’ to examine what happened. Criminal investigations conducted in secret resulted in no charges.
That's a myth. He just moved them offshore into international waters while keeping certain select torture centers open (Gitmo, Bagram).
Advocacy groups say the Senate report’s 600-page executive summary, which is to be released along with a CIA response and a minority dissent, will be the last chance for public accountability.
For months, the former officials who are implicated in the report have strategized about how to rebut it. Many of them sincerely believe that they did what the country asked of them after Sept. 11 and that they are being impugned now because the political winds have shifted.
About a dozen officials were called in recent days and told they could read the executive summary at a secure room at the Office of Director of National Intelligence, four former officials said.
The move came after two letters to CIA Director John Brennan — one from three former CIA directors and a second from a larger group of former officers. The letters argued that it was only fair that the former officers be given a chance to learn in advance what the report said about them.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, chairwoman of the intelligence committee, agreed to let some former officials read the report, on condition they do so at a secure facility and sign a promise not to talk about it with the news media.
Then, on Friday, CIA officials called some of the former officials and told them that due to a miscommunication, only former CIA directors and deputy directors would be given that privilege. Former directors Michael Hayden, Porter Goss, and George Tenet have been invited to read it, as have former acting directors John McLaughlin and Michael Morell.
Senate aides familiar with the matter say Feinstein protested to the White House that it had no business allowing so many retired officials to read a Senate oversight report. Representatives for Feinstein, the CIA, and the White House had no comment.
Add another article to the impeachment. Thing is a mile long now.
Several people who have read the full report, and who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss still-classified material, say it shows that the CIA interrogation program was far more brutal than previously understood and that CIA officials repeatedly misled Congress and the Justice Department about what was being done to Al Qaeda detainees. The report asserts that no unique, life-saving intelligence was gleaned from the harsh techniques.
In other words, the torture based on a false flag lie was worthless war crimes.
At least the imagery and illusion of a Great War on Terror was fostered for decades to come. Kinda makes the stain on the government seem worth it.
It has long been known the CIA used slapping, stress positions, sleep deprivation, and other harsh tactics on several detainees and a near-drowning technique known as water-boarding on three of them.
The CIA’s use of water-boarding has drawn particular scrutiny since it is considered the harshest technique on the list of those used, but the report asserts that the other tactics, as applied, were extremely harsh.
From what I remember one was slicing open a guys scrotum and another was electric shock to the genitals.
Torture is illegal under US law. CIA officials dispute that water-boarding amounted to torture.
It's like what the Supreme Court said: you know it when it is performed on you.
CIA interrogators were acting under since-repudiated Justice Department legal opinions saying that the techniques were not torture. Obama decided that anyone who followed legal guidance would not be prosecuted.
Yeah, no one ever was prosecuted, never mind jailed. Just those disgusting grunts at Abu Ghraib.
The report asserts, however, that the Justice Department’s narrow, meticulous rules for how the harsh techniques were supposed to be applied were not always followed, those who have read the full report said. The CIA inspector general reached that conclusion a decade ago.
The CIA not following rules? Yer kiddin'!!!
--more--"
It's a showdown on Capitol Hill!
"Senate panel OK’s release of CIA interrogation report; Authors detail, decry techniques used after 9/11" by David S. Joachim | New York Times April 04, 2014
WASHINGTON — The public will soon get its first look at a voluminous report on the CIA’s detention and interrogation practices during the George W. Bush administration, after the Senate Intelligence Committee voted Thursday to declassify key sections of its report....
Over three months is "soon?"
The panel voted to declassify the report’s executive summary and conclusions — about 480 of its 6,200 pages. The next step is President Obama’s approval. Obama, who opposed the CIA program of enhanced interrogation methods as a presidential candidate and discontinued it once he took office in 2009, has said he wants the findings of the report made public.
He didn't discontinue it, but what is one more distortion or lie in an eternity of them from the ma$$ media.
The White House would not say how long it would take the administration to review the report for sensitive national security disclosures, but a spokeswoman said the process would be expedited.
“We urge the committee to complete the report and send it to us, so that we can declassify the findings and the American people can understand what happened in the past, and that can help guide us as we move forward,” said Caitlin Hayden, the spokeswoman for the National Security Council.
“We’ll do that as expeditiously as we can, but I’m not going to speculate on the time frame for declassifying something we haven’t received yet,” she said.
I'm sure it will be when the heat is on Obummer for something. It's probably already prepared for release. Just waiting for the appropriate time for maximum public relations impact and distraction.
People who have read the report, written by the Senate committee, said it offers the most detailed look to date on the CIA’s methods of interrogating terrorism suspects after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. It concludes that the spy agency repeatedly misled Congress, the White House, and the public about the program’s benefits.
Republicans on the committee have been harshly critical of the report, calling it a one-sided attempt to discredit the CIA and the Bush administration. As a result, they have refused to take part in the inquiry.
Same old political fooleys.
Even so, the vote did attract some GOP support. “Despite the report’s significant errors, omissions, and assumptions — as well as a lot of cherry-picking of the facts — I want the American people to be able to see it and judge for themselves,” Senator Saxby Chambliss, the ranking Republican on the committee, said in a written statement.
He is retiring so I guess he is free to say that. In any event, it is good to see a Republican stand against torture.
Cherry-picking is okay if it leads us into an invasion, of course.
The panel, which met in a closed session Thursday, also approved the declassification of the Republican dissent from the report’s conclusions and the CIA’s response to the inquiry....
--more--"
Related:
"The report is said to challenge claims made by Bush administration officials that the CIA interrogation methods yielded valuable information that disrupted terrorist plots and led US spies to other Al Qaeda operatives, and provide new details about the questioning of prisoners in a number of CIA prisons in Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Human rights advocates have pledged to exert pressure on Obama to ensure that the report is swiftly made public."
Turns out AmeriKa has a long history of torture and spying. You could ask for the tapes but they have all been destroyed or disappeared.
You know what would clear all this up? A commission.
