KVUE: Analysis: Will torture report ultimately harm or help?

Americans have the right to know what brutality is done in their name. See Rep. Lloyd Doggett's comments on KVUE’s analysis of the Senate’s report on the CIA’s interrogation program here.

KVUE: Analysis: Will torture report ultimately harm or help?

By: Mark Wiggins

December 9, 2014

AUSTIN -- In the popular Showtime original series "Homeland," a scene in the first season episode "Blind Spot" depicts a terrorist undergoing enhanced interrogation tactics at the hands of the Central Intelligence Agency. The prisoner is stripped and left in a cold room, where he's deprived of sleep by deafening blasts of heavy metal music.

"I think it's a very good depiction of some of the enhanced interrogation tactics that have been used," said Fred Burton, Vice President for Intelligence at Austin-based geopolitical intelligence firm Stratfor.

A former counterterrorism investigator with the U.S. Diplomatic Security Service, Burton has investigated everything from Cold War assassinations to the first World Trade Center Bombing in 1993. Burton recalls visits during his federal service to a number of foreign detention facilities where extreme interrogations were conducted.

"Most people will tell you anything when they incur pain, and I don't think that they're very successful," Burton told KVUE. "It's never been my experience that they've actually worked."

It's the same conclusion reached by the so-called "torture report" released by the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence chaired by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA). The 525 page summary made public Tuesday gruesomely details interrogations conducted by the CIA on terrorists captured after the September 11 attacks.

Read the full report here.

The report graphically describes waterboardings, extensive sleep deprivation, beatings and and exposure to hypothermia that may have resulted in at least one death. It accuses the CIA of downplaying the severity of interrogations, actively impeding White House oversight, avoiding investigators and misleading the U.S. Department of Justice.

REPUBLICANS

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) will be the second-highest ranking Republican in the Senate once the new Congress convenes in 2015. The newly-elected GOP whip issued a statement Tuesday calling the report "troubling for a variety of reasons, most of which are not found in its pages."

"Enhanced interrogation techniques employed by members of our intelligence community saved American lives, and Senate Democrats should thank these brave men and women who worked to protect us – not vilify them," said Cornyn. "I cannot think of a greater disservice to our men and women serving in the military and in our intelligence field than to hand terror groups like ISIL another recruiting tool and excuse to target them. Due to the political calculations of some, the American people and our allies across the globe are less safe today than they were before."

Breaking with many of his Republican colleagues, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) condemned the CIA's activities. A prisoner of war confined in the "Hanoi Hilton" from 1967 to 1973, McCain was permanently disabled by torture at the hands of his North Vietnamese captors. McCain spoke Tuesday on the Senate floor in support of the document.

"It's a thorough and thoughtful study of practices that I believe not only failed their purpose to secure actionable intelligence to prevent further attacks on the US and our allies, but actually damaged our security interests as well as our reputation as a force for good in the world."

U.S. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX 10) responded to the report in a statement, "The study authored by Diane Feinstein is deeply flawed, and I am disappointed the democrats and the president declassified it when we are at war with terrorists who will use it as a recruiting propaganda."

"Unfortunately, the Democrats have put their own agenda above the impact this report could have on the safety of not only our servicemen and women who are fighting this war overseas, but all Americans and our allies," said McCaul. "It is important to note the intelligence obtained after 9/11 thwarted multiple terrorists plots, and led to the capture and killing of those who wish to do us harm."

DEMOCRATS

Introducing the report, Sen. Feinstein defended her decision to make the information public by noting "this clearly is a period of turmoil and instability in many parts of the world. Unfortunately, that's going to continue for the foreseeable future, whether this report is released or not."

"I think Americans have a right to know when their government engages in brutality," Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX 35) told KVUE Tuesday. "What we learned is that torture does not work. It failed, and our country is really left less safe when our values are debased and when our unassailable position on justice and human rights is brought into question."

"What endangers Americans is not the truth, but the wrongdoing that occurred here," said Doggett, who calls the CIA's actions "a bureaucracy run amok" with neither accountability nor restraint. While allowing some of those involved may have been motivated by the desire to fight terrorism, Doggett argues such activity makes it more difficult for those abroad to separate America from her enemies. His disappointment is not limited to the Bush administration.

"I think there should have been some criminal prosecutions," Doggett said. "Certainly there needs to be accountability within the agency, and I disagree with the current administration that did not raise these issues of wrongdoing when they entered office -- even though it was widely known -- and who seemed to have devoted more effort to redacting and removing certain critical pieces of information from this report and suppressing whistleblowers than demanding that accountability."

CONTEXT

Burton believes it's important to remember the state of the nation immediately following the catastrophic attacks of September 11, 2001. While it may be easy to point out errors in ethics and judgment now, "The atmospherics around when these decisions were made to go down this garden path were at a different time in our history."

"Remember President Bush standing in the rubble of the trade towers' collapse," said Burton. "There was a tremendous amount of fear that additional attacks were going to take place -- to include a potential weapon of mass destruction being detonated on U.S. soil. And as you're standing on the rubble, that kind of fear does manifest itself."

Dr. Jeremi Suri is the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at the University of Texas' Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. A published expert on global politics, Suri suggests it's important to disentangle what the intelligence agencies told then-President Bush from what they actually did.

"From all I've seen, the White House sent a very clear signal to the intelligence agencies after 9/11 that the gloves were coming off and they could do many things they couldn't do before," said Suri.

"I don't think the intelligence agencies should be criticized for doing what the White House didn't want them to do," said Suri. "They knew that they had the signal to do this. That said, it doesn't justify this behavior. We still are a society of laws, and a society that does not torture should not undertake torture even if the president of the United States encourages that behavior."

SECURITY

"The concern is that this information will inspire and encourage people to attack the United States," said Suri, "That they will see this as further evidence of the United States doing the bad things they claim we're doing, and those who want to roust people into doing things violent against Americans oversees might use this as ammunition for their preexisting desire to attack Americans."

U.S. diplomatic facilities around the world on are high alert in the event of retaliation. While U.S. Marines have heightened their vigilance, intelligence officials will be monitoring conditions in potential trouble spots for any mob violence. Burton says the worst case scenario would be another situation like the deadly 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya.

"That's my biggest fear," said Burton. While American individuals in potentially hostile regions could be at greater risk than physical government structures, Burton suggests monitoring developments over the next 72 hours will be critical. The disclosures could also hurt the intelligence services of other nations that work discreetly alongside U.S. intelligence agencies, often providing critical human intelligence as well as clandestine locations for conducting interrogations.

"How many of them will shut down?" said Burton. "How many of them will choose not to help us going forward? How many of them will remember, 'Yes the Americans promised this would never be made public, now look at what's happened.'"

BIG PICTURE

The report comes at a time where the U.S. is building political and military coalitions in unstable regions such as Ukraine and the Middle East, and America's ability to maintain and expand those coalitions could be affected. The impact may be felt most acutely in the Middle East, where the U.S. is carefully courting the assistance of wary and often hostile regional powers in the fight against the terrorist group ISIL.

"The release of this report will certainly make it harder for the United States to argue that we've always done the right thing in the Middle East and that we've treated all the people from that reason with respect," said Suri. "It will be hard for us to overcome what is already a somewhat negative image."

"The positive side of the report is that we're the only side of the world that releases this kind of information, that talks about this," said Suri. "We're an open society, and so the message we want to send to people in the Middle East is not that we're perfect, not that we don't make mistakes, but that we talk about what we've done and we hold ourselves accountable."

Suri concedes while that may not immediately please many in the Middle East, it's important for America's long-term interests to morally distinguish itself from other nations as one that wields power responsibly and corrects its mistakes.

"We want to show that we're a civilized, humane society," said Suri. "We want to encourage people to want to work with us and we want to encourage people to surrender. If they know they're going to be tortured, they're not going to surrender."

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