Tortures

“The Torture Report”: Who Was the CIA Official Who Found Torture Revolting?

The Senate report hints at some dissension in the ranks when it came to the extreme interrogation tactics, but does not go into much detail about who was concerned, how widespread the concern was, or how the concern was handled.

In a 2004 email, the then-CIA chief of interrogations expressed disgust with the program, writing that he would “no longer be associated in any way with the interrogation program due to serious reservations,” calling it a “train wreack [sic] waiting to happen” and stating that he wanted to “get the hell off the train.”

He was responding to a written plan to interrogate an inmate named Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who was revealed to have been taken to five different CIA “black sites” and tortured with mock executions, waterboarding, and having a drill held up to his head. CIA officers on the ground, according to the Senate report, told the federal government that he had given up all information he had — but higher-ups insisted they keep torturing him.