{"id":27754,"date":"2016-09-18T14:22:25","date_gmt":"2016-09-18T22:22:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=27754"},"modified":"2016-09-18T14:22:25","modified_gmt":"2016-09-18T22:22:25","slug":"us-media-ignores-cia-cover-up-on-torture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2016\/09\/18\/us-media-ignores-cia-cover-up-on-torture\/","title":{"rendered":"US Media Ignores CIA Cover-Up on Torture"},"content":{"rendered":"

MEMORANDUM FOR: <\/strong>Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Vice Chairman, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
FROM:<\/strong> Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
SUBJECT: <\/strong>U.S. Media Mum On How Your Committee Faced Down Both CIA and Obama<\/p>\n

We write to thank you for your unwavering support for your extraordinarily courageous and tenacious staff in (1) investigating CIA torture under the Bush\/Cheney administration and (2) resisting CIA\/White House attempts under the Obama administration to cover up heinous torture crimes like waterboarding.<\/p>\n

We confess to having been shocked at the torture detailed in the version of the executive summary<\/a> your Committee released on December 9, 2014. We found ourselves wondering what additional behavior could have been deemed so repugnant that the White House and CIA insisted it be redacted; and if the entire 6,700-page investigation \u2013 with whatever redaction might be truly necessary \u2013 would ever see the light of day. We think you could take steps now to make it less likely that the full report be deep-sixed, and we will make some suggestions below toward that end.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

With well over 400 years of intelligence experience under our collective belt, we wondered how you managed to get the investigation finished and the executive summary up and out (though redacted). We now know the backstory \u2013 thanks to the unstinting courage of the committee\u2019s principal investigator Daniel Jones, who has been interviewed by Spencer Ackerman<\/a>, an investigative reporter for The (UK) Guardian newspaper. The titanic struggle depicted by Ackerman reads like a crime novel; sadly, the four-part series is nonfiction:<\/p>\n

I. \u201cSenate investigator breaks silence about CIA’s ‘failed coverup’ of torture report<\/a>”<\/p>\n

II. \u201cInside the fight to reveal the CIA’s torture secrets<\/a>”<\/p>\n

III. ” ‘A constitutional crisis’: the CIA turns on the Senate<\/a>”<\/p>\n

IV. \u201cNo looking back: the CIA torture report’s aftermath<\/a>“<\/p>\n

Ackerman\u2019s reporting on Jones\u2019s tenacity in facing down the gorilla CIA makes abundantly clear how richly deserved was the encomium you gave Jones<\/a> when he left the committee staff in December 2015.<\/p>\n

You noted, \u201cWithout his indefatigable work on the Intelligence Committee staff, the Senate report on the CIA\u2019s Detention and Interrogation Program would not have been completed, nor would its 525-page executive summary have been released to the public.\u201d<\/p>\n

It seems equal praise might well be due to any<\/strong>Snowden-like patriot\/whistleblower who \u201cinadvertently\u201d included the \u201cPanetta Review” in the reams of material given your committee by the CIA.<\/p>\n

Remarkably, a full week after The Guardian<\/em> carried Ackerman\u2019s revelations, none has been picked up by US\u201cmainstream\u201d newspapers. Not the New York Times<\/em>, the Wall Street Journal<\/em>, the Washington Post<\/em> \u2013 not even The Hill<\/em>.<\/p>\n

(As for alternative media, Charles P. Pierce\u2019s timely piece<\/a> for Esquire <\/em>whetted his readers\u2019 appetite for the gripping detail of the Guardian<\/em> series, explaining that it would be \u201cunfair both to Ackerman\u2019s diligence and Jones\u2019s courage\u201d to try to summarize even just the first installment. \u201cRead the whole damn thing,\u201d Pierce advises.)<\/p>\n

And so, the culprits who should be hanging their heads in shame are out and about, with some still collecting book royalties and some blithely working for this or that candidate for president. As if nothing happened. Sadly, given the soporific state of our mainstream media \u2013 particularly on sensitive issues like these \u2013 their silence is nothing new, although it does seem to have gotten even worse in recent years.<\/p>\n

The late William Colby, CIA director from 1973 to 1976, has been quoted as saying: \u201cThe CIA owns everyone of any significance in the major media.\u201d Whether or not Colby was quoted correctly, the experience of the past several decades suggests it is largely true. Better sourced is a quote from William Casey, CIA director from 1981 to 1987: \u201cWe\u2019ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.\u201d<\/p>\n

In these circumstances, we know from sad experience that there is no way any of us can get on any of the Sunday talk shows, for example \u2013 despite our enviable record<\/a> for getting it right. Nor does it seem likely that any of the \u201cmainstream\u201d media will invite you to discuss the highly instructive revelations in The Guardian. We respectfully suggest that you take the initiative to obtain media exposure for this very important story.<\/p>\n

One additional request: As you and your investigators know better than anyone, it is essential to safeguard the integrity not only of the unredacted executive summary but also of the entire 6,700-page committee report on the CIA\u2019s Detention and Interrogation Program.<\/p>\n

And, again, you are aware that as soon as Sen. Richard Burr, R-North Carolina, took the gavel from you, he took steps seemingly aimed at ensuring that the full report never sees the light of day. Could you ask him why, as soon as he became chair, he asked the executive branch to transfer their copies to the Senate Intelligence Committee?<\/p>\n

Many interpreted that as an ill-disguised attempt to thwart holding accountable those responsible for the abuses. Moreover, if the report cannot be reviewed by those who might be asked to participate in activities like torture in the future, how is it even possible for anyone to learn from the prior unfortunate experience?<\/p>\n

The public is entitled to the entire story about the CIA torture program and its lies to Congress, the White House, and to us. Any attempt to bury the fullest investigation of the torture program \u2013 an investigation that provides an example of Congressional oversight at its best \u2013<\/strong>would undermine the democratic accountability that is supposed to be provided by the separation of powers.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, as you were quoted in the Guardian series, the agency searches \u201cmay have undermined the constitutional framework essential to effective congressional oversight of intelligence activities or any other government function . . .\u201d<\/p>\n

Senator Jay Rockefeller, D-West Virginia, was exactly on point: \u201cYou either have oversight and separation of powers with the checks and balances that come with that, or you don\u2019t. It\u2019s amazing that, once again, no one at the CIA was held accountable.\u201d Consequently, the issue now is not only the cover-up of torture by the CIA but \u2013 at least equally important \u2013 the “unbridled agency that spied on Americans (including Senate Intelligence Committee staffers) as eagerly as they spied on foreign adversaries,\u201d as the Guardian described it in referring to the Church Committee investigation in the 1970s.<\/p>\n

Does American democracy deserve any less than an intense investigation of the CIA\u2019s obstruction of the democratic process in the 2000s?<\/p>\n

The Guardian<\/em> revelations make it still more difficult for the kind of excuses made by those who can hardly pretend to be disinterested observers \u2013 former CIA directors George Tenet, Porter Goss, Michael Hayden, for example \u2013 who wrote Rebuttal: The CIA Responds to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Study of Its Detention and Interrogation Program, <\/em>published on September 9, 2015. We published our own (VIPS) critique of \u201cRebuttal\u201d<\/a> five days later. And before the final vote on John Brennan\u2019s nomination to become CIA director, we tried to warn you<\/a> not to trust him.<\/p>\n

We believe you will agree that more needs to be done to replant the moral moorings of honesty that must anchor the intelligence profession to which we have given so many years. And we think that one step in that direction would be for you to seize this new opportunity to give prominence to the edifying story of how your committee and its staffers stepped up so effectively to their responsibilities in investigating and exposing the very sad and delicate chapter of CIA torture.<\/p>\n

The play-by-play provided by the Guardian<\/em> series, with its appropriate focus on the top investigator Daniel Jones, has created an opportunity we hope will not be squandered; a chance to tell a truly uplifting story sure to encourage others to behave in similarly exemplary manner.<\/p>\n

For the Steering Group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPs)<\/b><\/em><\/p>\n