CIA reportedly declined to closely evaluate harsh interrogations

[sabra]

Source: LA Times

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.

Reporting from Washington -- 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.

That inspector general report described in broad terms the volume of intelligence that the interrogation program was producing, a point echoed in smaller studies later commissioned by then-CIA Director Porter J. Goss.

But 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.

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

[tularetom]

1. Mr Goss is scared shitless - read his panicky WaPost oped

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/24/AR2009042403339.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

[grasswire]

2. WTF did they think was going to happen?

Did they think this would be kept secret? Really?

Did they think that WMD would actually be found and that would justify the means?

Did they think that Democrats would never be in charge?

Did they think that no whistleblowers would ever surface?

WHAT were they thinking?

And another question: if the Abu Ghraib photos had never come to light, would any news of the torture ever have surfaced?

[shraby]

3. The GOP was going to have a permanent majority...

remember? That was what Rove claimed and the rest believed him.

[Snazzy]

4. you got questions, I got answers

They are greedy evil bastards. No empathy, that would be a weakness. Lots of leverage. A black hole of moola, yes men, control freaks, and no notion whatsoever of consequences (another weakness).

Can an agnostic-type such as myself define and categorize people as evil? I'm cool with it, 'cause it cuts short maybe an hour of explaining and we're all on the same page. That is, let's borrow evil as a scientific term perhaps.

But you know that, so it's rhetorical, apologies.

[grasswire]

5. you got answers, I got more questions

Is there a distinction between evil bastard and psychopath?

Have you ever read M. Scott Peck's book "People of the Lie"? In it, he (a psychologist) posited that there be a DSM description for evil; that it be quantified as a mental disorder. This would mesh with your suggestion that evil be a scientific term. Yes?

And, how is it that I have never noticed your posts before? Your communication style is fresh and jaunty. :hi:

[Snazzy]

6. Interesting that Hanna Arendt got bandied around recently

She came up in social psych way back when, in discussions of another subject also with recent misapplication, Milgram. "The Banality of Evil" was the subtitle of the book I think, but that doesn't really get you inside of Eichmann's head at all. Cliff note version if anything, and that's mocking poor Cliff (a national hero that Cliff).

No, I think her thesis (though it has been awhile) was closer to the notion that some people didn't have a capacity for empathy. Without that you can do the most terrible things, and convince people to do the most terrible things--why it's so important that authority dehumanizes the enemy, for example.

I do not recall M. Scott Peck but this is now a post-it sitting here enshrined in your honor, thanks.

Evil, like one of its mechanisms, torture, is one of those things that us humans, being human, all ought to agree upon when we see it. But now torture and evil have a partisan base (and a cable channel), so all bets are off. Strange fucking world that has torture debates.

Psychopath, sociopath suggest factors beyond control of the actor. Though he's clearly messed up in some serious way psychologically (uh, has issues? no breast feeding for sure), Cheney, the evil bastard big Kahunna, seems intentionally so. Like say a mob boss, though orders of magnitude worse. Milgram offered an absolute authority asking for the inhumane. Some obeyed. Milgram, unethical and questionable experiment that it was, doesn't examine the authority figure, just the subject. Does evil have room for both, maybe? Obviously one is a little more evil; too bad APA or whomever is now in on it, in the room with the waterboard. I expect no DSM category soon.

Jaunty eh, well not at 3:30. :toast:

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

9. There is a reason...

That it is extremely rare for someone from the Directorate of Operations at the CIA to get the DCI position. They don't call DO people "cowboys" for the sport of it.

[No Elephants]

7. When did "harsh" become code for torture? This is one of the biggest and fastest media

conspiracies I've ever witnessed.

[Downwinder]

8. Nov. 2000

[No Elephants]

11. Thanks. I take your point, but I remember media using the word "torture" after that.

[diamidue]

10. CIA

I saw this yesterday over at "whatreallyhappened.com"

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY!

"It is the function of the CIA to keep the world unstable, and to propagandize and teach the American people to hate, so we will let the Establishment spend any amount of money on arms."

-- John Stockwell, former CIA official and author

[No Elephants]

12. Wow. That's quite a statement.