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Senate Report Mirrors Reality of Asymmetric War
by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700
Copyright
December 10, 2014
All Rights Reserved.
When the long-awaited U.S. Senate
report on CIA “torture” or “enhanced interrogation techniques” hit the headlines
Dec. 9, the world gasped at the graphic details but forget the
state-of-the-union in the smoldering ruins of Sept. 11. While it’s tempting to point fingers
at such barbaric behavior in the name of finding answers to Sept. 11, it’s
helpful to recall the spate of beheadings by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria
and other Islamic terror groups.
Debating the pros-and-cons of the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation techniques,”
it’s more helpful to recall the state of the intel community at the time of
Sept. 11. Once the World Trade
Center and Pentagon were hit with jetliners by Osama bin Laden’s programmed
assassins, all U.S. intel agencies were forced to accept failure, prompting the
Bush-43 White House to contain a clear-and-present danger to U.S. national
security.
Former President George W. Bush directed his closest legal advisors
headed by former Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales to fashion specific legal
definitions of the threats faced by the U.S.
When the dust settled, Bush’s legal team defined the terrorists as “enemy
combatants” or those captured “battlefield detainees,” skirting, rightly or
wrongly, the Geneva Convention regarding treatment of prisoners of war. All calls today to prosecute Bush
administration officials fail to consider the context of a colossal U.S. intel
failure Sept. 11 and the urgent need to extract intel from battlefield
detainees. Whether or not CIA
methods worked or were incompatible with core U.S. values doesn’t change the
desperate attempt to find answers after Sept. 11. Whatever the Senate Select Committee
found and reported Dec. 9, it shows to the world transparency of the U.S.
government to evaluate its actions.
Condemning U.S. actions, whether coming from inside or outside the U.S.,
jumps the gun before examining the context in the wake of Sept. 11. Bush administration officials were blindsided by Bin Laden’s attack, creating inescapable
distrust of the CIA, FBI and Defense Intelligence, all of which failed to
prevent the attack. Bush and his
more experienced Vice President Dick Cheney took extraordinary steps to close
gaps in intelligence failures, relying instead on the Pentagon’s Office of
Special Plans headed up by Douglas J. Feith.
Cheney reacted to charges that the CIA ran a rogue operation, violating
acceptable U.S. protocols for interrogation and detainee treatment. Calling the charges of illegal
activity a “bunch of hooey,” Cheney tried to remind critics that the CIA’s
intel-gathering operation was authorized by all branches of the U.S. government,
including the White House, Congress and Supreme Court.
Insisting the Senate report
on CIA torture “stained our national honor,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.)—a former
5-year-long-Vietnam prisoner of war—jumped the gun condemning the Bush
administration’s tactics. While
hindsight’s 20/20, there’s a time and place to debate the appropriate CIA
tactics at Guantanamo Bay Camp X-Ray or a Black Sites around the globe. Insisting that CIA “enhanced
interrogation techniques” did “much harm, and little good,” McCain ignores that
paucity of on-the-ground intel needed to prevent 9/11. Going after human intelligence of
high-value battlefield detainees was the last resort to prevent another attack
on the U.S. homeland. Cheney, while
denying water-boarding as “torture,” said he would do things the same way if he
had to do it again. Cheney goes
overboard insisting “enhanced interrogation techniques” led to getting Bin
Laden.
Condemnation followed fast-and-furious from U.S. allies and foes alike. “The CIA’s practice of torture is
gruesome,” said German Justice Minister Heiko Maas. “Nothing justifies such methods. Everybody involved must be legally
prosecuted,” saying nothing about prosecuting terrorist networks for Sept. 11. No one in world history committed
more atrocities against civilization than the German Nazi regime. China also felt entitled to lambaste
the U.S. for its use of “enhanced interrogation techniques.” “China has consistently opposed
torture,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei. Few countries, other than Germany,
have performed—and continue to perform—more atrocities and human rights
violations than China. China
harvests organs for medical use from ordinary prisoners. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei called the U.S. a “symbol of tyranny against humanity.”
Trading barbs and pointing fingers does little to understand the context
of CIA’s “enhanced interrogation techniques” to extract new intel about future
terrorist attacks on the U.S. homeland.
Like Iran that routinely tortures confessions out of prisoners, the
world’s most repressive totalitarian regime in North Korea ripped the U.S. for
“inhuman torture practiced by the CIA.”
Whether engaged in water-boarding, sleep deprivation, cramped
confinement, etc., the CIA’s practices pale in comparison to the brutality seen
in communist and rogues regimes around the planet. Faced with inadequate intel after
Sept. 11, the CIA had to step up its game to get answers on future terrorist
plots. Whether “enhanced
interrogation techniques” yielded any actionable intelligence is anyone’s guess. Regardless of claims by former Bush
administration officials, Congress needs to figure out whether “enhanced
interrogation techniques” really work.
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