[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 17340-17346]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




      SSCI STUDY OF THE CIA'S DETENTION AND INTERROGATION PROGRAM

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I listened with interest to the tremendous 
statement made by the Senator from California, Mrs. Feinstein, earlier 
today. She has spoken of this issue on other occasions, and we 
Americans should listen.
  More than a decade ago the Central Intelligence Agency began 
detaining and torturing human beings in the name of the war on 
terrorism. Then employees and contractors of the U.S. Government, paid 
for by our taxpayers' dollars, abused and degraded, dehumanized people. 
They stripped them of their basic humanity. But more than stripping 
them of their basic humanity, they stripped America of its standing in 
the world as the leader of promoting and protecting human rights. 
Instead of protecting us as Americans, by their actions they hurt all 
Americans.
  President Obama banned torture and cruel treatment when he took 
office, but only now, because of the courage and conviction of Senator 
Feinstein and the other members of the Intelligence Committee and their 
staffs, do we have a full and public accounting of the CIA's actions--
an accounting the American people deserve.
  The decision to release this historic report, as Senator Feinstein 
has courageously said, has been difficult, but it was the right and 
moral thing to do. If something is right and something is moral, no 
matter how difficult it is, you should do it. Releasing the report 
demonstrates that America--the America I love--is different. As 
Americans, we cannot sweep our mistakes under the rug and pretend they 
did not happen. We have to acknowledge our mistakes. We have to learn 
from our mistakes. In this case, we as Americans must and will do 
everything we can to ensure that our government never tortures again.
  Five years ago, in 2009, I called for a commission of inquiry to 
review the Bush administration's detention and interrogation program 
and other sweeping claims of executive power by the Bush 
administration. I believe that in order to restore America's moral 
leadership, we have to acknowledge what happened in our name because 
much of the leadership we can show around the world is not based on our 
wealth or on the power of our military but on our moral leadership. Our 
Nation needed back then a full accounting of the CIA's treatment of 
detainees, and we need it today. With this report, at long last we have 
it.
  This is not the first report to record or condemn the detention and 
interrogation policies and practices that were used during the last 
administration, but it is the first to fully chronicle the actions of 
the most secretive of our government agencies, the Central Intelligence 
Agency. The final report lays bare the dark truth about their program. 
That truth is far worse and it is far more brutal than most Americans 
ever imagined.
  We have all seen the shocking pictures from Abu Ghraib. We have read 
the cold, clinical description of ``harsh'' or ``enhanced'' techniques 
written by Department of Justice attorneys to justify such treatment. 
We know that what was done at Abu Ghraib terribly diminished the image 
of the United States throughout the world. It did not make us safer by 
one iota. In fact, many would argue it made us less safe.
  The report makes clear one fundamental truth: The CIA tortured 
people. That is the bottom line. No euphemistic description or legal 
obfuscation or pettifoggery can hide that fact any longer. The 
Intelligence Committee report shows that techniques such as 
waterboarding and sleep deprivation were used in ways far more frequent 
and cruel and harmful than previously known. It shows that gross 
mismanagement by those in charge at the CIA and a shocking indifference 
to human dignity led to horrendous treatment and conditions of 
confinement that went far beyond even what they had been approving. It 
turns out that the senior CIA leadership did not even know that 
``enhanced'' techniques were being used at one CIA detention facility. 
In fact, in one instance, one of their prisoners died as a result, left 
shackled on a concrete floor in a dungeon room, and likely died of 
hypothermia.

[[Page 17341]]

  This is America? This is what we stand for? This is the image we want 
to give the rest of the world? This American does not think so. This 
American does not think so. It is not what brought my grandparents and 
great-grandparents to this country.
  These so-called ``enhanced'' interrogation techniques were not just 
used on the worst of the worst either. In some instances, the CIA did 
not even know whom it was holding. CIA records show that at least 26 
people detained by the CIA did not meet the CIA's own standard for 
detention. Some of these individuals were subjected to--and this is a 
wonderful slogan--``enhanced'' techniques. What an evil slogan. Some 
detainees were determined not even to be members of Al Qaeda.
  Moreover, the CIA relied on contractors--not even CIA personnel but 
contractors--who had no experience as interrogators to develop this 
program. They were happy to take American taxpayers' money. They did 
not know what they were doing, but they said: Give us the money. 
Eventually the CIA outsourced all aspects of the program to the company 
these contractors set up. Did they make a few thousand dollars? No. 
They made $80 million. This was a program out of control. It is yet 
another reason why Congress has to exercise its oversight 
responsibility.
  The report also disproves CIA claims that torture programs were 
necessary to protect our Nation, and that it thwarted attacks. How many 
times have we heard it before--that we need this to protect us; we need 
this to protect us from another 9/11? We had all of the evidence we 
needed to stop 9/11, but the government had not even bothered to 
translate some of the material that our intelligence people had already 
obtained. After the fact, they decided: We should really translate some 
of that material we have. Then we found it could have been stopped.
  This program of torture did not make us safer. As laid out in 
meticulous detail in the report, the use of these techniques did not 
generate uniquely valuable intelligence. In fact, the report thoroughly 
repudiates each of the most commonly cited examples of plots thwarted 
and terrorists captured. That should not come as a surprise.
  The Senate Judiciary Committee held numerous hearings on the Bush 
administration's interrogation policies and practices. What we heard 
time and again from witness after witness is that torture and other 
cruel treatments do not work. But there are still some who continue to 
argue, even in the face of overwhelming testimony and actually now hard 
evidence to the contrary, that the program thwarted attacks and saved 
lives. They defend the CIA's action. They argue that the report does 
not tell the full story. But these are often the same people who 
participated in the rampant misrepresentations detailed in this report.
  The report shows that CIA officials consistently misled virtually 
everyone outside the Agency about what was actually going on and about 
the results of the CIA interrogations--very similar to what we heard 
leading up to the war in Iraq after 9/11. I remember being in those 
hearings. I remember listening to the then-Vice President. I remember 
listening to others in those secret hearings and thinking: It does not 
ring true. I stated to others that I thought some of the things they 
were telling us did not ring true.
  I remember walking early one morning with my wife near our home and 
two joggers coming up, calling us by name. These were people we had 
never seen before in the neighborhood.
  One of them said, ``I hear you have some questions.'' He asked 
whether I had asked to see a particular document.
  I said, ``I haven't. I didn't know there was such a thing.''
  He said, ``You might find it interesting to read.''
  So I did. Then I raised even more questions about what I read there, 
which totally contradicted what the Vice President and others were 
saying. I mentioned that to some.
  A few days later we are out walking again. Both joggers--my wife 
remembers this so well--they said, ``I see you read the document.''
  I said, ``I did.''
  ``But did they tell you about this other document?''
  I said, ``I didn't know there was such a document.''
  ``You may find it interesting.''
  And so I then reviewed it. It was obvious from what I read that they 
were withholding evidence that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/
11, contrary to what the Vice President and others were saying; that 
there were no weapons of mass destruction; and that in fact, they were 
actually well penned in by the no-fly zone we had set up. But instead 
we rushed into war because we sought to avenge 9/11, even though they 
had nothing to do with 
9/11. Now almost $3 trillion later, look at the mess we are in.
  The report released today details how, like the run-up to the war in 
Iraq, material that was held back from people who should have seen it. 
This included Members of Congress, White House officials, even Justice 
Department lawyers who were being asked to review the legality of CIA 
techniques.
  In the coming weeks, as we go into the new Congress, we are going to 
hear a lot about the need for oversight. I would hope the new 
leadership would look at the report Senator Feinstein and her committee 
have come out with, because this is where oversight should be--at the 
top of the list. So too should the unprecedented spying by the CIA on 
the congressional staff investigating this program. Just think about 
that. They investigated Members of Congress who were asking them about 
things they had done wrong. Then there is also the troubling pattern of 
intimidation, which includes the CIA referring its own congressional 
overseers to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution. My God, 
we are going back to the Joseph McCarthy days with things like this. 
This report and those actions show a CIA out of control. It is 
incumbent upon all of us--Republicans and Democrats alike--in the 
Congress to hold the Agency accountable.
  The Judiciary Committee should take a hard look at the role of the 
Department of Justice and its legal justifications for this program. 
Much ink has been spilled criticizing the OLC opinion written during 
the Bush administration by John Yoo, Jay Bybee, and Stephen Bradbury. 
The OLC has always had a good reputation, but these opinions sullied 
the reputation of that office, and they have been rightly repudiated. 
But the report also demonstrates that even those opinions were the 
result of key misrepresentations by the CIA about the seniority of the 
people subjected to these techniques, the implementation of the 
techniques, and the intelligence resulting from them.
  As an institution, if we truly represent 325 million Americans, do we 
not have a responsibility to examine the systemic failure that allowed 
this to happen and then to ensure that it does not happen again?
  Those who attack the credibility of this report are wrong. This 
report is not based on conjecture or theory or insinuation. Anyone who 
reads it can see that this careful, thorough report was meticulously 
researched and written. It is based on more than 6 million pages of CIA 
cables, emails, and other documents containing descriptions that CIA 
employees and contractors themselves recorded.
  I believe Senator Feinstein and the other members of the Intelligence 
Committee who worked on this deserve our respect and our appreciation.
  Intelligence Committee staffers, too, have dedicated years of their 
lives to this report. They have demonstrated courage and dedication in 
the face of enormous challenges, because they thought first and 
foremost about the United States of America.
  In the past year they were even threatened with criminal prosecution. 
Why? For doing the job they are supposed to do for the United States of 
America. But they would not allow themselves to be intimidated. They 
have served their country well, and they have my deepest appreciation 
for bringing us this truly historic study.
  I thank their families, because they couldn't tell their families the 
things they were reading. I imagine the families knew of some of these 
attacks on

[[Page 17342]]

them. Their families too deserve our thanks.
  I am disappointed that those same honorable staffers had to spend so 
many months arguing with this White House about redactions to this 
report--a White House that is supposed to be dedicated to transparency. 
This report should have been issued months ago, and it still contains 
more redactions than it should. I can think of some who will wonder why 
the redactions are there, but I am gratified that we can finally shed 
light on this dark chapter.
  Among the many lessons we can take from this report is that Americans 
deserve more government transparency, and that is essential to a strong 
democracy. Just yesterday the Senate unanimously passed a bipartisan 
bill, the Leahy-Cornyn FOIA Improvement Act. It significantly improves 
the Freedom of Information Act. Today's release of this report is 
another important victory for greater government transparency.
  I strongly disagree with those who argue that the reports should not 
come out and who have tried to pressure and silence Senator Feinstein. 
Don't place the blame on those who are telling the truth. Place the 
blame squarely where it belongs: on those who authorized and carried 
out a systematic program of torture and secret detention, which is in 
violation of domestic law, and in violation of international law. But 
more importantly it is in violation of the fundamental principles of 
morality on which our great Nation was founded.
  In trying times, such as those we faced after September 11 and those 
we face now, we look to our intelligence, military, and law enforcement 
professionals to keep us safe. We are fortunate to have so many 
dedicated and talented people serving in the intelligence community, 
military, and law enforcement. But one lesson for their sake, our sake, 
and our country's sake, is that we should never become so blinded by 
fear that we are willing to sacrifice our own principles, laws, and 
humanity.
  We are the greatest, most powerful Nation on Earth. We cannot turn 
our backs on our laws, our history, and our Constitution because we are 
afraid. This Senator is not afraid.
  No matter what, our enemies are human beings. And no matter how 
hardened and evil they are, no matter how repulsive their actions--and 
many are--no matter how horribly they have treated their own victims, 
we do not torture them--because we don't join them on that dark side of 
history. We stand on the other side of history as Americans. 
Generations of men and women have given their lives and many have even 
endured torture themselves in order to protect this Nation. They did so 
not to protect our way of life, but to protect our principles, our 
understanding of right and wrong, of humanity, of evil.
  The shameful actions uncovered by this report dishonored those men 
and women who have fought to protect what is the best of our Nation, as 
well as the men and women even today who continue to put their lives at 
risk for this country.
  Americans know, throughout this country, that we are better than 
this. As we heard after Abu Ghraib and we will hear now, we are better 
than this and we should never let this happen again. Let's show the 
rest of the world, too.
  I have spoken much longer than I normally do, but this is important 
to me.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
  Mr. KING. Mr. President, I also want to address the report that was 
released this morning by the Chair of the Intelligence Committee. I 
come at this in a slightly different way than some of my colleagues, 
because I came to this process late.
  I joined the Intelligence Committee in January of 2013. By that time 
the report had been authorized, had been written, and actually had been 
finalized. So I came to it as a final product and the decision was 
whether it should be released.
  Before talking about the report, there are two very important points 
that should be made.
  No. 1, one of my problems with this discussion is that everybody 
talks about the CIA. The CIA did this, the CIA did that. The fact is 
the CIA as an institution doesn't do anything. People do things.
  I have been around the world and met with CIA people in many 
countries. I have met with them here. They are patriotic, they are 
dedicated, they are smart, and they are brave. The problem with this 
situation is their reputation has been sullied by a relatively small 
group of people early in the prior decade.
  So I want to make clear, at least as far as I am concerned, this is 
not an attempt to discredit or otherwise undermine the CIA or the good 
people who are there, but to point out that mistakes were made.
  No. 2, I think we need to acknowledge that those were extraordinary 
times, the year or so after September 11. We thought there was going to 
be another attack. There was a lot of pressure to uncover that 
information. It is easy, 10 years later, to look back and say: Well, we 
shouldn't have done this or we shouldn't have done that. I understand 
that. We have to acknowledge that. However, those circumstances cannot 
justify a basic violation of who we are as Americans and what our 
values are.
  The process is the report was completed and accepted by the committee 
on a bipartisan basis. My predecessor, Olympia Snowe, voted in favor of 
the acceptance of the report in December of 2012.
  It was then sent to the CIA. They responded, a rather full response. 
It took about 6 months, and then they submitted their response to the 
committee.
  I knew the vote was going to be coming up last spring as to whether 
to release the report. I went to the secure site in one of our 
buildings and sat down every night for a week and read this executive 
summary, every single word--all 500 pages, all of the footnotes--and 
made my own judgment as one who was in no way invested in this report. 
Here are the conclusions I reached. I must say, until I sat and read 
it, I didn't fully comprehend what this issue was, why we needed this 
large report, why we needed to do this study. After reading it, I was 
shaken and convinced that the report was important and should be 
released.
  Basically, it has four conclusions. I am not going to go through them 
in detail, but No. 1 was: We committed torture. I am not going to argue 
that. I would say, as I said repeatedly, read the report. No person can 
read the description of what was done in our name and not conclude that 
it was way outside the values of our country and constituted torture by 
any definition.
  No. 2, it was terribly managed. That is not a very exciting point 
about management, but nobody was in charge. Contractors were actually 
designing the program and assessing whether it was successful--the 
people who had designed it and were implementing it. There was no 
central place at the CIA that managed it, so that was a problem.
  No. 3--and this we are going to talk about for a few minutes--it was 
not effective. The guts of this report are an analysis of the 20 
principal cases the CIA presented as justification for the torture to 
say that it worked, that it led to intelligence that was reliable and 
current, and the report goes through in excruciating detail looking at 
each one of those allegations.
  It basically finds that the information was either already available, 
it was available in our hands, it was available in other ways, and the 
witnesses had given up the data prior to their being subjected to these 
extraordinary measures. I am going to talk, as I mentioned, in a couple 
of minutes about this issue of effectiveness.
  I should have said this at the beginning. My poor words can't 
contribute a great deal to this debate, but the speech Senator John 
McCain made on this floor this morning should be required viewing for 
every schoolchild in America, every Member of this body, every Member 
of this Congress, and every American. He spoke eloquently about the 
violation of our ideals of this program and the fact that it cannot, 
will not, and could not work.

[[Page 17343]]

  The final point we take from the report is this program was 
continually misrepresented. It was misrepresented to the President, it 
was misrepresented to the Justice Department, it was misrepresented to 
the Congress, and it was misrepresented to the Intelligence Committee.
  The problem is that continues today. In the past few days we have 
seen an outburst of statements, speeches, and interviews on television 
saying it was effective. It wasn't effective, and the report makes that 
clear.
  There is a semantic sleight of hand going on, and I have already seen 
it in two or three interviews on television where people slide from the 
report and they say: The program of detention of people whom we 
captured after September 11 was effective in generating intelligence.
  Absolutely true. There is no doubt of that. People were detained, 
they were interrogated, they gave good intelligence, it taught us what 
we know about Al Qaeda, and it was very helpful to the country in 
preventing future plots.
  The question for the House, though, is was the torture effective? If 
you have somebody in custody, they give up good information, and then 
later you torture them and they don't give you anymore information, the 
torture didn't create that information or that intelligence. The 
question is did the extraordinary methods create additional evidence.
  People should cock their ears when they hear people say the program 
created this good intelligence. It did. But the program is not what we 
are talking about today. We are talking about so-called enhanced 
interrogation techniques.
  I would suggest when people come up with a euphemism such as enhanced 
interrogation techniques, that should tip us off that something is 
going on that we should be concerned about.
  I wrestled with this decision. It was not easy. There is risk 
involved. There has been a lot of commentary today. Our people are on 
alert. Will someone attack us because of this report?
  I can't deny that risk. I think it is impossible to say. But we have 
already learned that these people will attack us for any or no reason. 
They have been trying to attack us for 10 years. That is their reason 
for existing.
  ISIL has beheaded Americans, not because of this report, but because 
that is their agenda. Now they may issue a press release or a YouTube 
video and say we are doing this because of the report, but I would 
submit they are going to do it anyway.
  What they are going to cite--it is not the report, it is what we did 
that has inflamed opposition around the world, and it has done so for 
many years already.
  Finally, on the question of the risk, when the terrible activities at 
Abu Ghraib came to the attention of the Congress, we did a report. The 
Armed Services Committee did a study and issued a report in grisly 
detail of what was done, and at that point we had 100,000 troops in 
Iraq. If ever there was a report that would have inflamed public 
opinion in a foreign country and generated retribution against us, it 
was that. We cannot be intimidated by people who tell us that we cannot 
exercise and be true to our own ideals.
  But if there is any risk, why should we do it? Because these actions 
are so alien to our values, they are so alien to our principles that we 
simply can't countenance them.
  By the way, if this wasn't torture, if this wasn't a problem, why did 
the CIA destroy the tapes of one of these interrogations? That is what 
started all of this, when the Senate learned they had destroyed tapes. 
If they thought this was not torture--which is what they were telling 
us--then why are they destroying the tapes? That is what began this 
process.
  To me, one of the most telling quotes in the whole report was a back-
and-forth between the CIA and I think the White House--but I think it 
was within the CIA where the statement was made: ``Whatever you do, 
don't let Colin Powell find out about this, he'll blow his stack.'' Now 
that tells me they knew they were doing something that wasn't 
acceptable to our country and to the American people. But the second 
reason to release this report is the key: so it will never happen 
again. That is the whole deal here.
  The campaign of the last few days of people saying it worked and it 
wasn't torture and you shouldn't do it because of the risk--that, to 
me, validates my concern because these people are essentially saying: 
We would do it again if we had the chance. And the only thing standing 
between them and doing it again is an Executive order signed by this 
President in January of 2009, which could be wiped out in the first 
week of a new Presidency or in the first month of a new Presidency. We 
cannot have this happen again.
  The oratory is that it works. I have a letter, which I will submit 
for the Record, from 20 former terrorist interrogators--Army, Air 
Force, CIA, FBI--saying these kinds of tactics don't work and, in fact, 
they produce bad intelligence. There is an article in Politico today by 
Mark Fallen, who is a 30-year interrogator, saying it doesn't work.
  We have to have this discussion and lay that to rest because the 
people who are saying it works are really saying: And we will do it 
again if we have to. And that is not who we are as people.
  Interestingly, in the CIA's response to the report--all during the 
early part of this past decade the argument was--and we are hearing it 
today--it works. We are certain it works. We got valuable intelligence. 
We got Osama bin Laden.
  The CIA is not saying that today. When they submitted their response 
to the committee's report, what they said about effectiveness was that 
it is unknowable whether it was effective. I believe the migration from 
the certainty they gave to Members of Congress and the President and 
the Department of Justice--the migration from ``certainty'' to 
``unknowable'' speaks volumes because they couldn't refute the facts 
that are in this report.
  If this idea that this kind of interrogation works becomes 
conventional wisdom, it will definitely happen again.
  I go back in conclusion to John McCain's statement this morning. I 
can't match his eloquence. It was one of the most powerful messages I 
have ever heard in this body or anywhere else. He talked about who we 
are as Americans, and he also talked from personal experience about 
what torture will do and whether it will produce good information, and 
I would submit that John McCain knows more about that particular 
subject than all the rest of us in this body put together.
  I got a critical note from a friend in Maine this morning that said 
``You know, you are naive'' and all those kinds of things. I just wrote 
him back and said, ``Don't take it from me; watch what John McCain had 
to say.''
  We are exceptional, but we are not exceptional because of natural 
resources or because we are smarter and better looking than anybody 
else; we are exceptional because of our values. We are one of the few 
countries in the world that was founded on explicit values and ideals 
and principles. And principles aren't something you discard when times 
get tough. That is when they are important. That is like saying: I am 
in favor of free press unless somebody says something offensive. These 
are principles that make us distinct and different.
  I believe this debate is about the soul of America. It is about who 
we want to be as a people. It is a hard debate. It is difficult. It is 
hard to talk about these things. This was a dark period. But I believe 
that having this discussion, having this debate, getting this 
information out--and by the way, all the information is going to be 
out: the report; the CIA's response was made public today; the minority 
had their own statement that is quite substantial. So the public is 
going to be able to look at all this information and make their own 
decisions. I looked at the information, and the decision I made was 
that this is important information the people of America are entitled 
to, they should understand, and we should move forward consistent with 
our ideals and our principles as a nation and see that something like 
this never happens again.

[[Page 17344]]

  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record 
the letter I referred to earlier.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                 February 4, 2014.
     Hon. Angus King,
     U.S. Senate, 359 Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, 
         DC.
       Dear Senator King: We write to you as current and former 
     professional interrogators, interviewers, and intelligence 
     officials regarding the Senate Select Committee on 
     Intelligence's (SSCI) 6000-plus page study of the CIA's post-
     9/11 rendition, detention, and interrogation program. We 
     understand that the SSCI may soon take up the issue of 
     whether to pursue declassification and public release of the 
     study. In the interest of transparency and furthering an 
     understanding of effective interrogation policy, we urge you 
     to support declassification and release of as much of the 
     study as possible, with only such redactions as are necessary 
     to protect national security.
       Since the CIA program was established over a decade ago, 
     there has been substantial public interest in, and discussion 
     of, the fundamental efficacy of the so-called ``enhanced 
     interrogation techniques'' (EITs). Despite the employment of 
     these methods, critical questions remain unanswered as to 
     whether EITs are an appropriate, lawful, or effective means 
     of consistently eliciting accurate, timely, and comprehensive 
     intelligence from individuals held in custody. Based on our 
     experience, torture and other forms of abusive or coercive 
     techniques are more likely to generate unreliable information 
     and have repeatedly proven to be counterproductive as a means 
     of securing the enduring cooperation of a detained 
     individual. They increase the likelihood of receiving false 
     or misleading information, undermine this nation's ability to 
     work with key international partners, and bolster the 
     recruiting narratives of terrorist groups.
       We would like to emphasize that this view is further 
     supported by relevant studies in the behavioral sciences and 
     publicly available evidence, which show that coercive 
     interrogation methods can substantially disrupt a subject's 
     ability to accurately recall and convey information, cause a 
     subject to emotionally and psychologically ``shut down,'' 
     produce the circumstances where resistance is increased, or 
     create incentives for a subject to provide false information 
     to lessen the experience of pain, suffering, or anxiety.
       Despite this body of evidence, some former government 
     officials who authorized the CIA's so-called ``enhanced 
     interrogation'' program after 9/11 claim that it produced a 
     significant and sustained stream of accurate and reliable 
     intelligence that helped disrupt terrorist plots, save 
     American lives, and even locate Osama Bin Laden. While some 
     of the particular claimed successes of the program have been 
     disproven based on publicly available information, the 
     broader claim that the EIT program was necessary to disrupt 
     terrorist plots and save American lives is based on 
     classified information unavailable to the public.
       The SSCI study--based on a review of more than 6 million 
     pages of official records--provides an important opportunity 
     to shed light on these important questions. We understand 
     that the SSCI minority and CIA have separate views regarding 
     the meaning and significance of the official documentary 
     record. Those views are important and should also be made 
     public so that the American people have an opportunity to 
     decide for themselves whether the CIA program was ultimately 
     worth it.
       It is beyond time for this critical issue of national 
     importance to be driven by facts--not rhetoric or partisan 
     interest. We therefore urge you to vote in favor of 
     declassifying and releasing the SSCI study on the CIA's post-
     9/11 interrogation program.
           Sincerely,
         Tony Camerino, Glenn Carle, James T. Clemente, Jack 
           Cloonan, Gerry Downes, Mark Fallon, Brigadier General 
           David R. Irvine, USA (Ret.), Steven Kleinman, Marcus 
           Lewis, Mike Marks, Robert McFadden, Charles Mink, Joe 
           Navarro, Torin Nelson, Erik Phillips, William Quinn, 
           Buck Revell, Mark Safarik, Haviland Smith, Lieutenant 
           General Harry E. Soyster (Ret.).

  Mr. KING. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator 
Levin be permitted to follow my remarks and speak for up to 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HEINRICH. Mr. President, torture is wrong, it is un-American, and 
it doesn't work. Recognizing these important realities, the President 
signed an Executive order in January of 2009 that limited 
interrogations by any American personnel to the guidelines that are in 
the Army Field Manual, and he reinforced U.S. commitment to the Geneva 
Conventions. This closed the book on the Bush administration's 
interrogation program. But make no mistake--these weren't enhanced 
interrogations. This was torture. I would challenge anyone to read this 
report and not be truly disturbed by some of these techniques.
  Releasing the Intelligence Committee's study of the CIA's detention 
and interrogation program to the American people today will finally 
provide a thorough accounting of what happened and how it happened. In 
addition, like my colleague and friend from Maine who spoke before me, 
I hope this process helps to ensure that it never ever happens again.
  This was a grave chapter in our history, and the actions taken under 
this program cost our Nation global credibility, and--let's be blunt--
they put American lives at risk. Some have suggested that releasing 
this report could put American lives at risk. But let's be clear. It 
has been the use of torture that has unnecessarily put Americans in 
harm's way.
  There is no question that there will never be a good time to release 
this study. We all know that for months, terrorists in the extremist 
group ISIS have been kidnapping and barbarically killing innocent 
Americans because of what we as a nation stand for. The response to 
their threats and terrorism should not be for us to change our American 
values; it should be to stand firm in our values and work with our 
allies to root out extremism and terrorism in all its forms.
  The release of this study will finally let us face what was done in 
the name of the American people and allow for future generations to use 
these findings to learn from the mistakes made by the architects of 
this program. This is an objective, fact-based study. It is a fair 
study. And it is the only comprehensive study conducted of this program 
and the CIA's treatment of its detainees in the aftermath of the 
September 11 attacks. Today marks an enormous, albeit painful, step 
into our future.
  It is important to know that these torture methods were the 
brainchild of a few CIA officials and their contractors. When I joined 
the Intelligence Committee two years ago, I began to read the 
classified report and was surprised to learn this. Frankly, it was not 
consistent with all of my assumptions. It wasn't what my prejudices 
told me to expect. But that is exactly why a fact-based study is so 
important.
  Furthermore, it is important to know that at every turn, CIA 
leadership avoided congressional oversight of these activities and, 
even worse, misled Congress. That leadership deliberately kept the vast 
majority of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees in the dark on 
the interrogation techniques until the day the President revealed the 
detention and interrogation program to the rest of the world in 2006--4 
years after it began.
  Even then, misrepresentations to the committee about the 
effectiveness of this program continued, in large part because the CIA 
had never performed any comprehensive review of the effectiveness of 
the interrogation techniques or the actions of its officers. Myths of 
the effectiveness of torture have been repeated, perpetuating the fable 
that this was a necessary program that somehow saved lives.
  The committee examined the CIA's claims of plots thwarted and 
detainees captured as a result of intelligence gained through torture. 
In each and every case, the committee found that the intelligence was 
already available from other sources or provided by the detainees 
themselves before they were tortured.
  However, we need to stop treating the issue of torture as one worthy 
of debate over its practical merits. This is about torture being 
immoral, being un-American. Reducing a human being to a state of 
despair through systematic subjugation, pain, and humiliation is 
unquestionably immoral. It should never happen again with the blessing 
of the Government of the United States of America.
  As my colleague who spoke before me--Senator King of Maine--said so 
well in an interview this morning,

[[Page 17345]]

``This is not America. This is not who we are.'' I think that sums up 
how I view the revelations in that report.
  The information in the study released today to the public will 
finally pull back the curtain on the terrible judgment that went into 
creating and implementing this interrogation program.
  The decision to use these techniques and the defense of the program 
were the work of a relatively small number of people at the CIA. This 
study is in no way a condemnation of the thousands of patriotic men and 
women at this great Agency who work tirelessly every day to protect and 
defend our Nation from very real and imminent threats using lawful 
measures; using effective measures. In fact, the insistence that so 
many intelligence successes were the result of enhanced interrogations 
negates and marginalizes the effective work done by thousands of other 
CIA officers not involved in these activities.
  What this study does is show that multiple levels of government were 
misled about the effectiveness of these techniques. If secretive 
government agencies want to operate in a democracy, there must be trust 
and transparency with those who are tasked with the oversight of those 
agencies.
  As the committee carries out future oversight, we will benefit from 
the lessons in this study. I hope we never again let the challenges of 
difficult times be used as an excuse to frustrate and defer oversight 
the way it was in the early years described in this report.
  Although President Obama ended the program by signing that Executive 
order in 2009, any future President could reverse it. It is worth 
remembering that years before this detention and interrogation program 
even began, the CIA had sworn off the harsh interrogations of its past. 
But in the wake of the terrorist attacks against the United States, it 
repeated those mistakes by once again engaging in brutal interrogations 
that undermined our Nation's credibility on the issue of human rights, 
produced information of dubious value, and wasted millions and millions 
of taxpayer dollars.
  The public interest in this issue too often has centered on the 
personalities involved and the political battle waged in the release of 
this study, but those stories are reductive, and I hope they will soon 
be forgotten. Because the story of what happened in this detention and 
interrogation program--and how it happened--is too important, and it 
needs to be fully understood so that future generations will not make 
the same mistakes that our country made out of fear.
  When America engages in these acts, with authorization from the 
highest levels of government, we invite others to treat our citizens 
and our soldiers the same way. This study should serve as a warning to 
those who would make similar choices in the future or argue about the 
efficacy of these techniques. Let us learn from the mistakes of the 
past, and let us never repeat these mistakes again.
  Before I close, I wish to say how important it is to acknowledge that 
the Intelligence Committee's study of the CIA's detention and 
interrogation program represents many, many years of hard work by 
Members and staff who faced incredible obstacles in completing their 
work. The fact that this study is finished is a testament to their 
dedication, and it is a testament to the dedication and focus of 
Chairman Rockefeller and Chairman Feinstein in deciding that oversight 
is our job, regardless of how long it takes.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The senior Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the report released today by the 
Intelligence Committee is an important addition to the public's 
knowledge about the CIA's use of torture, euphemistically described by 
some as ``enhanced interrogation techniques'' in the period following 
the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
  The use of these techniques was a failure, both moral and practical. 
These tactics violated the values this Nation has long stood for, while 
adding little benefit to our security. As GEN David Petraeus and others 
have pointed out, their use has placed U.S. personnel at greater risk 
of being tortured. They have tarnished America's standing in the world 
and undermined our moral authority to confront tyrants and torturers. I 
am glad this report will fully inform a public debate with facts that 
have remained classified for too long, and I hope it ensures that our 
Nation never again resorts to such brutal and misguided methods.
  The report lays out clearly that, contrary to claims by former CIA 
and Bush administration officials, these techniques did not produce 
uniquely valuable intelligence that saved lives. The report examines 20 
such specific representations that were used frequently by the CIA to 
make the case to policymakers for continued use of abusive techniques. 
In all 20 cases, the CIA's claims about the value of intelligence 
gathered through torture were inaccurate. At the same time the CIA was 
making false claims about the effectiveness of these techniques, it was 
failing to mention that some detainees subjected to these techniques 
provided false, fabricated information--information that led to time-
consuming wild-goose chases.
  This is not at all surprising when we consider the origin of these 
abusive interrogation techniques. In 2008 the Senate Armed Services 
Committee produced a detailed investigative report into the treatment 
of detainees in military custody. That report traced the path of 
techniques such as waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and forced nudity 
from the military's survival, evasion, resistance, and escape training, 
or SERE training, the path to interrogations of U.S. detainees. SERE 
training was not designed to train U.S. personnel to torture detainees. 
Rather, it was designed to prepare U.S. personnel to survive torture at 
the hands of our enemies. SERE training simulated techniques that were 
used by the Chinese interrogators during the Korean War--techniques 
designed to elicit a confession--any confession--whether true or false. 
Those who tortured U.S. troops were not after valuable actionable 
intelligence. They were after confessions they could use for propaganda 
purposes.
  Defenders of the CIA's actions have claimed that abusive techniques 
produced key intelligence on locating bin Laden that couldn't have been 
acquired through other means. This is false, as the Intelligence 
Committee's report demonstrates in detail. Not only was the key 
information leading to bin Laden obtained through other means not 
involving abusive interrogation techniques by the CIA, but, in fact, 
the CIA detainee who provided the most significant information about 
the courier provided the information prior to being subjected to 
abusive interrogation.
  There has been a great deal of conversation, and rightly so, about 
the need for effective congressional oversight of our intelligence 
community and the obstacles that exist to that oversight. This report 
highlights many such obstacles. In one case, this report makes public 
the likely connection between the Senate's efforts to oversee 
intelligence and the destruction of CIA tapes documenting abusive 
interrogation of detainees. In 2005 I sponsored a resolution, with the 
support of ten colleagues, to establish an independent national 
commission to examine treatment of detainees since 9/11. According to 
emails quoted in the report released today, Acting CIA General Counsel 
John Rizzo wrote on October 31, 2005, that the commission proposal 
``seems to be gaining some traction,'' and argued for renewed efforts 
``to get the right people downtown''--that is, at the White House--``on 
board with the notion of our destroying the tapes.'' Does it sound a 
little bit like Watergate? The videos were destroyed at the direction 
of Jose Rodriguez, then the head of the CIA's National Clandestine 
Service, just 1 day after the November 8, 2005, vote on our commission 
proposal in the Senate. It is just one striking example of the CIA's 
efforts to evade oversight.
  Some have argued against releasing this report, suggesting that it 
could

[[Page 17346]]

spark violence against American interests. Fundamentally, the idea that 
release of this report undermines our security is a massive exercise in 
blame shifting. Telling the truth about how we engaged in torture 
doesn't risk our security. It is the use of torture that undermines our 
security. Release of this report is hopefully an insurance policy 
against the danger that a future President, a future intelligence 
community, and a future Congress might believe that we should 
compromise our values in pursuit of unreliable information through 
torture. If a future America believes that what America's CIA did in 
2001, 2002, and 2003 was acceptable and useful, we are at risk of 
repeating the same horrific mistakes. That is a threat to our security.
  Torture is never the American way. Concealing the truth is never the 
American way. Our Nation stands for something better. Our people 
deserve something better--they deserve an intelligence community that 
conducts itself according to the law, according to basic human values, 
and with the safety of our troops always in mind. They deserve better 
than intelligence tactics that are likely to produce useless lies from 
people trying to end their torture being used against them, instead of 
producing valuable intelligence.
  I thank Chairman Feinstein for her leadership in completing and 
releasing this report. I thank Senator Rockefeller for his longstanding 
effort in this regard. I thank Senator McCain and others for speaking 
out on the need to ensure that the United States never again repeats 
these mistakes.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________