Senate Intelligence Committee Criticizes Interrogation Methods

The Senate Intelligence Committee has authorized (12-3) an appropriations bill (pdf) for fiscal year 2008 that includes pointed criticism of Bush Administration interrogation techniques.

The Committee said that the CIA’s detention and interrogation program has generated "damage ... to the image of the United States abroad" and this cost must be weighed against any "demonstrated value" provided by the program. This provision was approved on 17 May by a voice vote.

Last week, also via voice vote, the Committee adopted an amendment by Sen. Feinstein (D-CA), Sen. Hagel (R-NE), Sen. Mikulski (D-MD), Sen. Snowe (R-ME), Sen. Warner (R-VA) and Sen. Whitehouse (D-RI) to require that the Director of National Intelligence prepare a National Intelligence Estimate on the anticipated geo-political effects of global climate change. In a minority report, Vice Chairman Bond (R-MO) and Sen. Burr, Sen. Chambliss (R-GA)and Sen. Hatch (R-UT) objected to this provision.

CIA Detention and Interrogation Program
The fiscal year 2008 intelligence authorization bill is the first passed by the Committee in which all members were briefed on the CIA’s detention and interrogation program. While the program has been briefed from its outset to the Committee’s Chairman and Vice Chairman, the Administration’s decision to withhold the program’s existence from the full Committee membership for five years was unfortunate in that it unnecessarily hindered congressional oversight of the program.

Significant legal issues about the CIA detention and interrogation program remain unresolved. The Department of Justice has not produced a review of aspects of the program since the Supreme Court’s Hamdan decision and the passage into law of the Detainee Treatment Act in 2005 and the Military Commissions Act of 2006. The Committee urges prompt completion of such a legal review as soon as possible, regardless of whether the program is currently being used. The Committee expects that such review will be provided to the Committee as a part of its ongoing oversight of the program.

The Committee recognizes that the program was born in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, when follow-on attacks were expected. The Committee acknowledges that individuals detained in the program have provided valuable information that has led to the identification of terrorists and the disruption of terrorist plots. More than five years after the decision to start the program, however, the Committee believes that consideration should be given to whether it is the best means to obtain a full and reliable intelligence debriefing of a detainee. Both Congress and the Administration must continue to evaluate whether having a separate CIA detention program that operates under different interrogation rules than those applicable to military and law enforcement officers is necessary, lawful, and in the best interests of the United States.

Moreover, the Committee believes that the demonstrated value of the program should be weighed against both the complications it causes to any ultimate prosecution of these terrorists, and the damage the program does to the image of the United States abroad.