Senate Intel investigation finds CIA torture "far more systematic and widespread than we thought"

It could have been big news, if U.S. torture weren't so anathema to the press corps, such that reporting upon it is considered either a fruitless and unprofitable enterprise, or among most of those who do venture into such waters, the sine qua non for such reportage must be ignorance and/or cover-up for much of what the U.S. military and intelligence agencies do.

Consider that during the recent Senate debate over the Defense Authorization Bill -- the one that passed provisions on indefinite detention that drew cries of outrage from a number of law professors, and stoked fear among government opponents -- Senator Dianne Feinstein, while speaking against provisions of the bill that would subject U.S. citizens to indefinite detention also made some serious points concerning the torture-interrogation amendment offered by Sen. Kelly Ayotte. (See PDF link of her remarks - h/t Marcy Wheeler.)

Feinstein announced that the much-heralded, and much forgotten review of CIA torture undertaken by the Senate Intelligence Committee, first reported by Jason Leopold back in April 2010, is wrapping up its investigation. But her comments went unregarded and unreported, as patience for such things as fighting torture is not the strong suit of American political discourse, nor is much expected anymore from a Congress that has so clearly lost its bearings.

But, nevertheless, the announcement is not without interest, as Feinstein told her colleagues:

As chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, I can say that we are nearing the completion [of] a comprehensive review of the CIA's former interrogation and detention program, and I can assure the Senate and the Nation that coercive and abusive treatment of detainees in U.S. custody was far more systematic and widespread than we thought.

Moreover, the abuse stemmed not from the isolated acts of a few bad apples but from fact that the line was blurred between what is permissible and impermissible conduct, putting U.S. personnel in an untenable position with their superiors and the law.

That is why Congress and the executive branch subsequently acted to provide our intelligence and military professionals with the clarity and guidance they need to effectively carry out their missions. And that is where the Army Field Manual comes in.

It is not surprising to hear the torture was worse than already known. After all, the purpose of secrecy and the cult of classification, so assiduously courted by the current Administration, is to hide crimes. So one can only hope the Intelligence Committee will, when the review is truly and finally complete (and let's hope it's not another 18 months), that its findings will be released publicly. In fact, in a decent world, it would be demanded.

Lies that facilitate torture - Case-in-point: the Army Field Manual

One reason for the lulled non-murmur over torture is the outrageous lie that Obama, after coming into office, "ended torture." He enshrined the Army Field Manual as the supposedly humane alternative to the Bush torture regime of "enhanced interrogation techniques." Feinstein, who certainly knows better, is an exemplary model for such myth-making -- "myth" because the Army Field Manual actually uses torture of various sorts, and even though about half-a-dozen human rights and legal organizations, and a number of prominent government interrogators have said so (see this Nov. 2010 letter signed by 14 well-known interrogators to then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates) -- as her following comments on the Army Field Manual (AFM) demonstrate.

Here, Sen. Feinstein is polemicizing against the Ayotte amendment, which was ignominiously dismissed via a parliamentary maneuver, along with a few dozen other amendments, after an ostentatious Senate "colloquy" on the matter by Senators Ayotte and Lieberman (with Lindsay Graham chiming in at the very end). The amendment awaits its resurrection, seeking passage attached like an obligate parasite to another bill some months down the line. (The authorization bill is currently "in conference," as a final version is worked out that reconciles both House and Senate versions. It is not unknown for provisions to be slipped in under such circumstances, and I wouldn't count out yet Ayotte/Lieberman/Graham's attempt to insert a new secret annex to the AFM, not until, like the undead, a stake is driven through its heart.)

Feinstein:

However, Senator Ayotte's amendment would require the executive branch to adopt a classified interrogation annex to the Army Field Manual, a concept that even the Bush administration rejected outright in 2006.

Senator Ayotte argued that the United States needs secret and undisclosed interrogation measures to successfully interrogate terrorists and gain actionable intelligence. However, our intelligence, military, and law enforcement professionals, who actually interrogate terrorists as part of their jobs, universally disagree. They believe that with the Army Field Manual as it currently is written, they have the tools needed to obtain actionable intelligence from U.S. detainees.

As an example, in 2009, after an extensive review, the intelligence community unanimously asserted that it had all the guidance and tools it needed to conduct effective interrogations. The Special Task Force on Interrogations--which included representatives from the CIA, Defense Department, the Office of the Director of Intelligence, and others--concluded that "no additional or different guidance was necessary."

Since 2009, the interagency High Value Detainee Interrogation Group has briefed the Select Committee on Intelligence numerous times. The group has repeatedly assured the committee that they have all authority they need to effectively gain actionable intelligence. As a consummate consumer of the intelligence products they produce, I agree.

Unfortunately, Sen. Feinstein is oddly correct. Between standard interrogation methods and CIA-derived interrogation techniques meant to break down a prisoner psychologically, they do really have all they "need."

Feinstein never mentions the years-long protests about certain provisions of the AFM, many of them gathered in the document's Appendix M, that have been found tantamount to torture -- the use of drugs (so long as they don't "induce lasting or permanent mental alteration or damage"), the harsh manipulation of fears and phobias, the elimination of wording from the previous version of the AFM that would ban stress positions, the use of isolation, sleep deprivation and sensory deprivation techniques. All of these are mingled in with a number of other basic interrogation techniques, but that doesn't diminish the cruel irony of Feinstein's IC-based assurance that government interrogators "had all the guidance and tools it needed to conduct effective interrogations." Guidance and tools, indeed.

Perhaps she could have quoted the letter to Gates, signed by Ali Soufan, Steven Kleinman, Jack Cloonan, Robert Baer, Mark Fallon, Malcolm Nance and others, which noted "the use of potentially abusive questioning tactics" in the Army Field Manual. Of course, these government interrogators softened their language ("potentially"?) and couched their opposition in terms of what hurts the national interest, versus what is wrong or illegal.

But when it comes to protecting the massive military-intelligence complex, such awkward facts as the use of cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment of prisoners, as well as outright torture enshrined in the Army Field Manual are not worthy of note. Even the many human rights groups who opposed the Ayotte amendment all buried any past critique of the AFM or its Appendix M in their polemics against Ayotte's "classified annex" proposal. This is not the way to win a battle!

Honoring "our values"?

Feinstein concluded:

We cannot have it both ways. Either we make clear to the world that the United States will honor our values and treat prisoners humanely or we let the world believe that we have secret interrogation methods to terrorize and torture our prisoners.

But what about interrogation methods that are not secret, Sen. Feinstein?

I don't seriously expect her to respond. Instead I ask readers, what kind of a country is it that has torture written into its public documents, and no one raises a fuss (or practically no one)?

The failure to take on the AFM and its Appendix M abuses in a serious fashion has led in a straight line to the political pornography of watching torture debated in Congress and among Presidential candidates, as well as a surge of political effort being made in some circles to make sure all such abuse is hidden forever behind a veil of classification. This failure is directly the responsibility of the human rights groups, who have not made it clear to their constituencies and the public at large how serious the problem currently is. While most of them are on the record of opposing the abuses described above, they repeatedly have pulled their punches for political reasons (as during the recent debate on the Ayotte amendment), and as a result, they must take the hard criticism when it comes, until, or unless they turn this around.

Senate Amendment Calls for a Return to Bush-Era Torture

Originally posted by Jeffrey Kaye at Truthout

Ayotte amendment on secret torture overshadows abuse problems with "Army Field Manual."

An amendment by Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-New Hampshire) to the current Defense Authorization Bill (SA 1068) now before Congress would roll back the 2009 Obama executive order against torture by re-establishing a secret "classified" set of interrogation techniques and then attaching them to the current "Army Field Manual" on human intelligence collection. But whether the amendment passes or not, the existence of certain interrogation techniques as used currently by the US military and intelligence services in the "Manual" do not comply with international norms, such as the Geneva Conventions.

A recent United Kingdom high court ruling on the use of hooding prisoners as a detention or interrogation technique indicated that use of any form of sensory obstruction, such as use of blindfolds, goggles or earmuffs, in place of hooding, which is outlawed, could only be temporary and "only for the time and extent necessary to preserve operational security." British military and security officers are directed not to work with governments that do not observe these rules.

Yet currently, use of goggles and earmuffs as a form of sensory deprivation used on prisoners is part of "Appendix M" of the "Army Field Manual." Their use is part of something called "Field Expedient Separation," and only to be used on "war on terror" detainees, who are deemed not subject to Geneva Conventions protections. Their purpose is beyond "operational" or security based and is meant to "Prolong the shock of capture ... and foster a feeling of futility."

The abusive use of sensory deprivation through use of blinding goggles and earmuffs is made even more explicit in the "Appendix M" discussion of the 12-hour time limitation on "field expedient separation," wherein such "limit on duration does not include the time that goggles or blindfolds and earmuffs are used on detainees for security purposes during transit and evacuation," i.e., the time limits concern use of goggles/blindfolds/earmuffs for purposes of psychological derangement. In addition, the technique cannot be applied without medical staff present, because of the dangers involved.

Sensory deprivation studies have shown that psychological symptoms, including panic and hallucinations, can be produced within hours of the application of such techniques.

A "Hooding" Substitute

In a "Statement on Hooding," written by the International Forensic Experts Group (IFEG) of the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims and presented to the UK high court in its deliberations, hooding was described as "a form of torture and/or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment (CIDT) [recognized] by a number of international and regional human rights bodies," and "a form of sensory deprivation that is associated with a number of physical and psychological effects and also may have significant adverse legal consequences."

The effects include psychological symptoms such as anxiety and claustrophobia. Hooding also "increases the likelihood of severe physical pain, injury and subsequent disability as it increases an individual's vulnerability to other methods of torture by preventing the anticipation of harm such as kicks and punches and subsequent defensive response."

While the US "Army Field Manual" forbids the use of hooding, it appears to have merely substituted parallel forms of abuse, as Field Expedient Separation mimics the effects of hooding. Indeed, the IFEG notes, "Hooding in this statement also refers to other equivalent forms of sensory deprivation such as the use of goggles or blindfolds and earmuffs."

Dr. Vincent Iacopino, the lead author of the IFEG statement, told Truthout in an email, "Although the DoD [Department of Defense] may not consider the use of goggles and earmuffs as a form of sensory deprivation, the IFEG Statement does.... Since the IFEG Statement makes clear that the use of goggles and earmuffs is a form of sensory deprivation, equivalent to hooding, that constitutes CIDT and, under some circumstances, torture, it should be clear that we consider the DoD's use of goggles and earmuffs a form of CIDT and/or torture as well." (Emphasis added.)

Interestingly, when the "Army Field Manual" was being rewritten in 2005 and 2006, the procedures used in its "Appendix M," which also includes use of solitary confinement (isolation up to 30 days or more), sleep deprivation and manipulation of "environmental conditions, were initially meant to be included in a "secret annex" to the manual. Apparently, there are some in the military or intelligence services who wish the decision to make "Appendix M" public had never been made. In fact, there is no indication as to what the fate of this little known appendix would be should Ayotte's amendment pass.

Secret Torture and "Enhanced Interrogation"

There is little question that the proposed "classified annex" would mean a return to the "enhanced interrogation" torture (EIT) practiced by the Bush administration, including use of waterboarding, water dousing (induction of hypothermia), stress positions, extreme sleep deprivation, various forms of physical abuse, confinement in a box, and more. Sen. Lindsay Graham, one of three Republican senators co-sponsoring the Ayotte amendment, hinted as much in a November 11 article at the National Review where he labeled President Obama's executive order stopping the EITs a "major mistake."

Graham called the EITs "consistent with our national values," and lauded the fact they "remain unknown to our enemies." (In fact, the EITs were later exposed and are as available online as the "Army Field Manual" is. See here and here.) But some veteran interrogators and a number of former military officers have expressed their opposition to Ayotte's amendment, this despite the fact that Ayotte ties the new secret interrogation rules to use by Obama's High-Value Interrogation Group (HIG), a fact little mentioned in press accounts.

Former interrogator Matthew Alexander, author of "How to Break a Terrorist," told Truthout in an email exchange that he was unaware of any secret annex on interrogation related to the HIG. Additionally, he added,  "I'm against a secret annex and sensory deprivation outside of transport," he said, adding he believes "more, in-depth cultural training [of interrogators] is needed to eradicate prejudice."

Alexander noted, "I have been searching for a Muslim interrogator in the Army for five years and have yet to find one (compared to WW II where about 70% of interrogators were ethnic Americans - Japanese, German, Italian, Austrian, etc.)," noting he supports an "emphasis on what is now being called the Informed Interrogation Method, which Ali Soufan has advocated."

In an exchange of op-eds with Mr. Alexander at The New York Times in January 2010, Sen. Dianne Feinstein indicated that the Obama administration was reviewing the varied complaints against "Appendix M." No public result of this review was ever released and a recent query to Senator Feinstein's office by Truthout regarding the fate of the review was not answered.

What Kind of Standard Is the "Army Field Manual"?

While the Ayotte amendment represents an appetite by some in government to return to a more unbridled form of torture, the current "Army Field Manual" is not "a respected standard that put an end to torture as an interrogation practice," as it was described recently in a column opposing the Ayotte amendment by Rev. Richard Killmer of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT). In a recent emailing to supporters, also opposing Ayotte's amendment, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) referred to the "Army Field Manual" as the "gold standard" for interrogation.

Yet, both NRCAT and PHR have openly criticized the "Army Field Manual" and its "Appendix M" at other times in the past (see here and here), as have other human rights groups, including Human Rights First, Center for Constitutional Rights, Amnesty International, and others. It is an indication of how far the interrogation discussion has drifted to the right that criticism of the manual has been dropped in order to defend it against a likely return to the days of secret interrogation techniques used by the Bush/Cheney White House, DoD and the CIA.

Kathleen Long, a spokeswoman for the Senate Armed Services Committee, told Truthout, "We expect strong opposition to the amendment" in the Senate. Senator Ayotte has complained that her critics do not notice that any proposed classified techniques stemming from her amendment must abide by the laws against torture, including those in the UN Convention Against Torture treaty and the 2005 Detainee Treatment Act. But these laws have been interpreted in such a fashion that the definitions of torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment have been eviscerated from their original meanings.

Dr. Stephen Miles, professor and Maas family endowed chair in bioethics, Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota, and a noted anti-torture author and activist, told Truthout, "The Army Field Manual is not an authoritative reference work on torture. The United States has adjusted its definitions of terms in international law to make its practices appear to comply with international law even in instances where we have called such acts 'torture' or unacceptable (i.e., cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment) when practiced by other nations. The United States is out of compliance with numerous conventions pertaining to the treatment of prisoners."

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