Intelligence
Senate and CIA agree: Interrogation program was 'deeply flawed'
The
Senate and CIA reports disagree on many details, but both largely agree the CIA
mismanaged the now-shuttered program.
By Stephen Braun,
Associated Press DECEMBER 24, 2014
· 
Christian
Hartmann/AP/File
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WASHINGTON — While the Senate report on the CIA's interrogation program and the spy agency's official
response clash on almost every aspect of the long-secret operation, both
reports largely agree the agency mismanaged the now-shuttered program.
The reports differ sharply on various aspects of the program from the
brutality and effectiveness of its methods and the agency's secret dealings
with the Bush White House, Congress, and the media.
The 525-page summary from the Senate Intelligence Committee paints a
chaotic landscape of bureaucratic dysfunction, showing an agency unprepared to
take control of terrorist prisoners, unqualified field interrogators who
overstepped their legal authority, and CIA bosses ignorant about exactly how
many detainees were warehoused in their overseas prisons. CIA oversight, the
Senate committee found, "was deeply flawed throughout the program's
duration."
The CIA agrees in its official response that "the agency made
serious missteps in the management and operation of the program." But it
said the breakdowns came in the program's early days and that internal changes
corrected much of the disarray before President George W. Bush ordered the
"black site" prisons emptied in 2006.
The divide over the depth of the CIA's management failures reflects a
long-standing history of conflict between the agency and its critics over how
mistakes should be corrected — and whether reforms should come from within or
be forced from outside.
The committee's chairwoman, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) of California,
said the panel aimed to "ensure coercive interrogation practices are not
used by our government again." The agency has proposed a series of changes
that would more tightly monitor its covert action programs, but CIA Director
John Brennan has been less clear about whether the agency would ever again use
interrogation techniques that President Barack Obama calls torture…
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