Remember folks: CIA isn't responsible for consequences of its torture, people who inform public are [View all]

[bigtree]

Trevor Timm ‏@trevortimm 19h
Remember kids: CIA isn't responsible for the consequences of its torture, only the people who inform the public are. https://news.yahoo.com/a-warning-on--torture-report--release-233244652.html …


Michael Isikoff: An intelligence agency warning on ‘torture report’ release

An internal U.S. intelligence memo warns that the release of a Senate report on CIA interrogation techniques could inflame anti-U.S. passions in the Mideast, resulting in potentially violent street protests and threats to U.S. embassies and personnel, U.S. officials tell Yahoo News.

The eight-page memo by the National Intelligence Council is being used by some in the intelligence community to argue for holding the line against Senate Intelligence Committee chair Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s demands to release a more complete version of the report’s 480-page summary. The memo went to the White House late last month but, administration officials said, played no role in the redactions to the report that Feinstein is objecting to.

“The Mideast is a tinderbox right now and this could be the spark that ignites quite a fire,” said one U.S. intelligence official who was briefed on the findings.

That concern was echoed Friday by a former top U.S. intelligence official who helped oversee the interrogation program. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out if you release a report like this at a time when terrorism is surging all over the Mideast you are handing the other side a recruitment tool,” John McLaughlin, a former CIA deputy director, told Yahoo News. “It’s blindingly obvious.”

. . . A White House official told Yahoo News that the White House did not request the NIC memo. "This was an intelligence community initiative to provide information to policymakers," the official said, emphasizing that redactions to the Senate report were made as part of a separate process based on concerns about the exposure of intelligence sources and methods as well as the identity of agency officers. President Obama's homeland security advisor Lisa Monaco is now overseeing a process to review Sen. Feinstein's request to make more portions of the report public, the official said.


read more: https://news.yahoo.com/a-warning-on--torture-report--release-233244652.html

. . . I'm anxious to see if someone, anyone from the White House embraces this line. Obviously this is intelligence agency ass-covering at it's most insidious. One more glaring example of the consequences of refusing to prosecute anyone for the crimes and abuses.