CIA Never Bothered to Assess Whether Their Tortures Were Effective or Necessary

[bigtree]

CIA reportedly declined to closely evaluate harsh interrogations
Current and former U.S. officials say the failure to carefully examine the value of 'enhanced' methods like waterboarding -- despite calls to do so as early as 2003 -- was part of a broader trend.


6:29 PM PDT, April 25, 2009

LAT -- The CIA used an arsenal of severe interrogation techniques on alleged Al Qaeda prisoners for nearly seven years without ever seeking a rigorous assessment of whether the methods were effective or necessary, according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

The failure to conduct a comprehensive examination occurred despite calls to do so as early as 2003. That year, the agency's inspector general circulated drafts of a report that raised deep concerns about waterboarding and other methods, and recommended a study by outside experts on whether they worked.

. . . neither the inspector general's report nor the other audits examined the effectiveness of interrogation techniques in detail, or sought to scrutinize the assertions of CIA counter-terrorism officials that so-called enhanced methods were essential to the program's results. One report by a former government official -- not an interrogation expert -- was about 10 pages long and amounted to a glowing review of interrogation efforts.

"Nobody with expertise or experience in interrogation ever took a rigorous, systematic review of the various techniques -- enhanced or otherwise -- to see what resulted in the best information," said a senior U.S. intelligence official involved in overseeing the interrogation program.

As a result, there was never a determination of "what you could do without the use of enhanced techniques," said the official . . .


read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-interrogate26-2009apr26,0,5771981.story

[shraby]

1. That isn't the crime...the whole act of torture was whether

they evaluated the results or their own asses. Torture is a crime, evaluated or not.

[bigtree]

2. this is important

. . . in countering the defense that there was some benefit to the tortures, and in countering the argument that the tortures were exclusively necessary.

[scarletwoman]

3. My gawd, this just gets more and more disgusting.

Was the CIA full of sadists just waiting for a green light to indulge their perversions?