Trump administration seeks to keep full CIA torture report hidden

The Trump administration is taking action to prevent the full CIA torture report of 2014 of 6,700 pages from being made public by having copies returned to Congress which is exempt from laws requiring government records be made available to the public.

The report describes the harsh detention and interrogation programs used by the United States. The White House claimed the move was made in response to requests by Senator Richard Burr, the current Republican chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

In a statement Burr said: "I have directed my staff to retrieve copies of the Congressional study that remain with the Executive Branch agencies and, as the Committee does with all classified and compartmented information, will enact the necessary measures to protect the sensitive sources and methods contained within the report."

Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein who had formerly chaired the committee had asked that it be distributed to many executive branches so it could be eventually released to the public under the Freedom of Information Act. Feinstein said she was concerned and disappointed by Burr's action saying: "No senator, chairman or not, has the authority to erase history. I believe that is the intent of the chairman in this case." The top Democrat on the committee Sen. Mark Warner said that the report should be preserved so the US can learn from past mistakes and so it will be sure never to repeat the abuses detailed in the report.

A declassified executive summary of the report was released to the public in December of 2014 and concluded that the CIA's programs using techniques such as water-boarding were more brutal and less effective than the CIA had reported to policymakers. The report even claimed that not a single terrorist attack was shown to have been foiled by the use of harsh interrogation techniques.

Four months after the release of the report the U.S. administration had taken no meaningful steps to end the impunity of those responsible for the abuses outlined in the report of the secret detention program. At that time representatives of the Department of Justice noted that no one had read the classified full reports and instead had left CD copies of the report unread in a secure facility. Feinstein in her attempts to have the report released distributed the report to a number of agencies to prevent exactly what the Republicans are now attempting to do, bury it for good.

Elizabeth Beaver, senior campaigner with Amnesty International USA said that the move to refuse to release the report could be a first step in a Trump administration plan to actually reinstate a policy of torture. She said that the details of the report should be made public and those responsible for abuse should be held responsible. Beaver claimed: “If this report is hidden from public view, it will be a massive step backward to a time when the U.S. refused to admit to conducting torture. Top cabinet officials committed to reading the Senate report during their confirmation hearings, and still must keep that promise. The report must be made public.”

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) had litigated to have the full report released, but U.S. courts have ruled that since the document was created by Congress, it was exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. In anticipation of what the Trump administration might do the top White House lawyer Neil Eggleston wrote to Senator Feinstein indicating that a copy of the full report would be preserved in Obama's presidential archive. Obama could have released the document publicly but refused to do so:President Obama has told Senate intelligence leaders that he will preserve a 7,000-page Senate report on how the CIA detained and interrogated terror suspects after 9/11 in his presidential papers — but won’t seek to declassify the document prior to leaving office. The president has informed the Archivist that access to classified material should be restricted for the full 12 years allowed under [the Presidential Records Act],” Obama’s chief lawyer wrote Friday to Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Richard Burr (R-N.C.), the ranking member and chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

In other words, the public must wait at least twelve years to find out the details of the CIA secret program assuming the copy is not lost somehow.

Obama refuses to declassify torture report

Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, along with many human rights and transparency advocates have been pressing President Obama for some time to declassify the unabridged version of the Senate Intelligence Committee torture report.

 

The Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program as it is called is nearly 7,000 pages. The report was approved on December 13, 2012 by a vote of nine to six, with seven Democrats, one Independent and one Republican voting in favor of publication and six Republicans voting against.

Instead of declassifying the report or having it declared an official record of one of the agencies that has a copy, Obama has decided to place the report in his official presidential records. The records will be subject to public requests only after 12 years in 2029 which could then trigger a declassification process. Obama passed up options to declassify large swathes of the document. Far from being open and more transparent about the subject Obama has ensured that the public cannot learn the details of the torture program for more than a decade. A letter to Dianne Feinstein was sent by White House Counsel Neil Eggleston outlining Obama's decision. Eggleston wrote: "I write to notify you that the full Study will be preserved under the Presidential Records Act. The determination that the Study will be preserved under the PRA has no bearing on copies of the Study currently stored at various agencies. ... At this time, we are not pursuing declassification of the full Study."

Feinman reacted by reiterating her belief that the report should be declassified but was pleased that the report would go into Obama's archives and would not be subject to destruction. She also noted that one day it would be available for declassification. Feinstein was chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee that produced the report. The move does prevent incoming president Trump from destroying the document. Given Trump's statements approving torture, he along with a number of Republicans might favor destruction of the report. However, Trump is also at odds with the intelligence community, does not trust them or attend briefings, and is angry at their presentation of evidence of Russian intervention in the U.S. election. Perhaps Trump might actually want to preserve the report, change his tune on torture, and use the report against the intelligence community or as a defense against any attempt to attack him by the intelligence community. However, given his views on torture, Trump appears unlikely to declassify the report as he could if he wished.

An executive summary of the report was released back in 2014, but the Obama administration fought against a Freedom of Information lawsuit that requested release of the full report. The administration argued that it was a congressional record, and not a record of the executive branch. Courts accepted that argument.

The executive summary is about 500 pages but is heavily redacted. The entire report cost about $40 million to prepare. The report shows that the program failed on the whole to produce anything useful and it also shows that the CIA lied about the program. The current chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Republican Senator Richard Burr far from wanting the full report declassified, would like to see the report destroyed.

Burr claims that the report is a Congressional Record not a federal one. He wants all copies to be returned. People in the executive branch are being told not to read it and not to enter it as a federal record. This keeps it away from Freedom Of Information Act Requests. Obama's move prevents Burr from destroying every single copy even if he manages to get them back. The CIA has somehow managed to destroy its only copy of the report, as indicated on the appended video.

Obama has refused to move ahead to declassify the report and the letter indicates there are no attempts at declassification at this time. Perhaps, Obama has a soft spot for incoming president Trump and does not wish to embarrass him by making public information that torture does not work.

Obama's drone wars continue with no end in sight

In spite of the fact that recently President Obama announced that a drone strike in Pakistan killed two innocent hostages being held by Al Qaeda, there is no sign of the drone program ending any time soon or that it will even be altered.

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Last Thursday, Obama said he took full responsibility for drone strikes that killed two Al Qaeda hostages in Pakistan. The strikes killed an American, Warren Weinstein,and Giovani Lo Porto, an Italian, along with two American Al Qaeda members. Weinstein was a 73-year-old economic advisor, and Lo Porto a 39-year-old aid worker. Obama gave few details of the operation but officials said that it took place in January after hundreds of hours of surveillance. If there was so much surveillance, how is it that there was so little intelligence about who was with the Al Qaeda operatives?

As Jeremy Scahill points out, the public only finds out about mishaps when journalists investigate. He claims there is very little transparency as to who the intended targets of the strikes were or what the aftermath is like. There appears to be renewed interest in drone attacks once a foreign citizen, especially an American, is a victim, but when civilians of the country targeted are victims there is often only limited press attention usually accompanied by US authorities denying reports of any civilians being killed. Everyone killed is almost always described as a suspected terrorist. While many anti-war and civil rights organizations have criticized the drone program, except for Pakistan, few countries, particularly U.S. allies, have criticized the program.

The UN, however, has been critical a number of times, including reports claiming the strikes were against international law and some of the practices, such as returning to an attacked site or attacking a funeral, being "war crimes." But as Professor Philip Alston, the former special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, points out this has not resulted in much criticism of the program by countries:‘Instead, most states are remaining relatively silent in the face of the evolution of US policies that are entirely inconsistent with international law and deeply problematic from a human rights and international law perspective.’

There is oversight of the program but it is limited. About once every month staff members of the intelligence committees of Congress go to CIA headquarters in Langley Virginia to watch videos of drone attacks. At the headquarters they get to view selected videos and selected intelligence reports supporting strikes. No doubt the intelligence presented and the videos seen are carefully vetted by the CIA before being presented to the staff. This macabre ritual is then presented as evidence that the drone program is rigorously reviewed.

A key official in developing the "targeted killing" drone operations was Michael D'Andrea. Earlier, D'Andrea was head of operations during the development of the CIA detention and interrogation program. In spite of the backlash against rendition and black sites, D'Andrea became head of the CIA Counterterrorism Center where he was a chief architect of the targeted killing operations. Just last month however, D'Andrea was shifted to another position. It is not clear why.

D'Andrea was a strong and persuasive advocate of the drone program and gained supporters in both parties for the program. In particular he gained the support of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who was chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee until January when Republicans took control of the Senate. CIA officials assured her that the program results in hardly any civilian deaths, but different sources come up with wildly different figures on civilian casualties:

Organizations that track drone strikes, like the New America Foundation, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and The Long War Journal, estimate that drones have killed some 4,000 people, about 500 of them civilians. But these numbers, based on news accounts and some on-the-ground interviews, are considered very rough.Feinstein gave a much lower figure in 2013: "The figures we have obtained from the executive branch, which we have done our utmost to verify, confirm that the number of civilian casualties that have resulted from such strikes each year has typically been in the single digits,”These figures have been shown to be far too low by many investigations. Even though the CIA drone program and the program to capture and question Al Qaeda suspects were run by many of the same CIA agents, the drone program continues to have wide support while the other program was severely criticized and rejected. In March 2013 a Gallup poll showed 65 percent of Americans favoured drone strikes against foreign terrorists in foreign countries. There was much less support if the targets were American citizens. Given the degree of U.S. public support for the drone attacks, there is little incentive to criticize the program as a means of garnering votes.

U.S. rejects Afghan recommendation to stop drone attacks.

   A Pakistani parliamentary committee has presented a list of 40 recommendations to a joint meeting of the Pakistani Senate and National Assembly for renewing ties with the U.S. Among the recommendations is that drone attacks cease.
    According to reports the U.S. Ambassador Cameron Munter has told the Pakistani foreign minister that the U.S. will not cease drone strikes on the Tribal areas. The Pakistanis claim the attacks are counter-productive, increase anti-American feeling, and violate Pakistan's sovereignty. However up until the break off of relations after a NATO attack killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November many think that there clearly was implicit approval by Pakistan of the drone attacks. Of course in public this approval was never admitted. In fact ruling party officials along with the opposition condemned the attack. There was even a motion in parliament that they cease.
    No doubt the Pakistanis will be able to get some of their recommendations accepted by  the U.S. Pakistan is proposing a tax on all NATO supplies passing through Pakistan. They also want an apology for the airstrike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. The U.S. apparently is willing to offer an apology.. However, on the issue of drone strikes the U.S. clearly is firm on continuing them in spite of the hostility it is causing and the problems it creates for Pakistani politicians.
  In the U.S. Senator Joe Libierman said: “drone strikes are critically important to America's national security. So obviously, I do not believe they should stop.” US Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein said “I think the key is whether Pakistan will go into North Waziristan and other places and take out those terrorist leaders who are essentially fuelling and leading attacks against our troops in Afghanistan,”  For more see this article.