Islam Times - CIA, Senate dispute not about national security

Islam Times - An international lawyer says the standoff between the CIA and the Senate Intelligence Committee over the agency’s enhanced interrogations report “has nothing to do with national security,” rather it is a “turf war” between opposing groups.

"This is not about national security. This dispute really is about Republicans and the CIA running interference to protect those people who conceived of and administered the post 9/11 US torture chambers from political and legal accountability,” Barry Grossman said.

A Senate report on CIA “enhanced interrogations” remains officially classified, but that has not stopped CIA officials from condemning the report publicly, insisting it is filled with unspecified errors.

“This issue is also about whether legislative oversight committees are at all effective in holding the US security apparatus accountable for its mistakes. Remember, this three year $40 million inquiry began as a bipartisan effort in March 2009, but Republicans withdrew their cooperation and support after the Justice Department began a criminal investigation of the interrogation program,” the lawyer said.

“That investigation closed without prosecutions. Contradictory positions are emerging from within the CIA itself and that suggests a long-standing division within CIA ranks about its role in operating the Bush administration’s torture chambers,” he explained.

Grossman noted that it is something quite apart from the usual bipartisan divisions.

“There seems to be two turf wars taking place; there is one between the Senate Intelligence Committee and the CIA and that’s bad enough and a second dispute between two opposing groups within the CIA. It is hard to work out which… is more outrageous,” he said.

The lawyer also pointed out that the interrogation techniques in question were banned by President Barack Obama and Senate Intelligence Committee members are saying that the report concludes that the harsh techniques used – such as water boarding and sleep deprivation – were entirely ineffective.

“The Senate Committee Report is said also to conclude that the CIA program was ‘mismanaged’ and ‘produced little or no valuable intelligence’.” He said. “If that is the case, clearly there has to be both political and legal accountability for the mistakes that were made.”

Senate Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and other Democrats on the committee have sought to publicly release at least portions of the 6,300-page report, but so far the Obama administration has not cleared it for declassification.