The Hill: Administration should release post-9/11 CIA program report

Op-ed by Raha Wala.

Vice President Biden and Senator McCain are right. What’s at stake here is nothing less than the only official documentary record of the post-9/11 CIA detention and interrogation program, which exists in a 6,000 plus page study that the Senate intelligence committee recently adopted. The study — based on three years of research, including a review of 6 million pages of official records — remains classified and is currently in the hands of the Obama administration, which is tasked with responding to findings. Reports suggest that some within the CIA who may have been involved in the brutal “enhanced interrogation” program are seeking to rewrite the study’s findings altogether.  Others in and out of the CIA don’t want the study declassified or released publicly in any form.

Perhaps at first glance, it’s easy to see why. Those familiar with the study’s findings — including Senator Feinstein, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence — have stated that the study shows that the CIA interrogation was much more cruel and widespread than was previously thought. The study also reportedly shows that the CIA torture program didn’t reliably produce actionable intelligence that saved American lives, rebutting the central claim that proponents of the “enhanced interrogation” rely on to justify torture.