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The CIA Itself On The Senate’s ‘Torture Report’

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With guest host Michel Martin.

The CIA on the CIA. After the explosive Senate report, what the Agency’s own are saying on torture and the way forward.

CIA Director John Brennan during a news conference at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., Thursday, Dec. 11, 2014. Brennan defending his agency from accusations in a Senate report that it used inhumane interrogation techniques against terrorist suspect with no security benefits to the nation.  (AP)
CIA Director John Brennan during a news conference at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., Thursday, Dec. 11, 2014. Brennan defending his agency from accusations in a Senate report that it used inhumane interrogation techniques against terrorist suspect with no security benefits to the nation. (AP)

Stomach churning details. Legal and moral questions about CIA operations in the years after the 9-11 attacks.  The Senate’s intelligence report lays out gruesome examples of prisoners subjected to stress positions, rectal feedings, ice baths, and more. And since those details became public, defenders and critics of the CIA and of the report itself have been speaking out. Now, we’re about to hear from the ultimate insiders: former CIA officers.  How could this have happened?  What did they know? And where do they see the agency going on from here?  This hour, On Point: The Agency’s own , weigh in.
-- Michel Martin

Guests

Adam Goldman, terrorism and national security reporter for the Washington Post. (@adamgoldmanwp)

Robert Baer, former CIA case officer. Author of "The Perfect Kill" and "See No Evil."

John Rizzo, former CIA legal advisor. One of the chief legal architects of the CIA's terrorist detention and interrogation program. Author of "Company Man: Thirty Years of Controversy and Crisis in the CIA."

From The Reading List

Reuters: For CIA, fallout from Senate report looks far from over -- "Inside the Central Intelligence Agency, intelligence officials expressed resentment over what they said was the unfairness of a Senate Intelligence Committee report released on Tuesday that harshly criticized the spy agency's detention and questioning of militant suspects. As Senate Democrats urged more information about the program be made public and CIA officials be held accountable, CIA Director John Brennan was scheduled to speak privately to the agency's employees on Wednesday about the Senate report."

Washington Post: Investigation into CIA’s interrogation program encountered a ‘fog of secrecy’ -- "The report remains the subject of deep divisions among those who have read it. Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), the panel’s ranking Republican, has derided it as 'an ideologically motivated, distorted recounting of events.' Some CIA veterans who were involved in the program have bristled that they were not interviewed as part of the Senate study and similarly concluded before the release that it would be deeply flawed."

The Intercept: Former CIA Officer On Torture Report — The whole question of torture could have been avoided if the military had 'just killed all these guys when they were captured on the battlefield,' when no one would have noticed, a former senior CIA officer told me over lunch today. I set up an interview a few weeks ago with him to talk about the situation in Iraq. When we met today, naturally the subject of the Senate’s report on torture came up. He’s pretty hardline on military issues, as you’d expect."

This program aired on December 15, 2014.

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