Today, the Senate Intelligence Committee is releasing the executive summary of its Study on the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program. It is a matter of great importance to me personally, and to the country. I first learned about some aspects of the CIA’s program when I became Vice Chairman of the Intelligence Committee in 2003, but the CIA refused to provide additional information or notify the full Committee about this program. In 2005, I attempted to launch an investigation but was blocked. When I became Chairman in 2007, I worked to gain significant additional access to information about the program and began holding hearings. The Intelligence Committee expanded my investigation and today’s report is the culmination of that investigation. The Senate Intelligence Committee’s entire Study on the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program is the most in-depth and substantive oversight initiative that the Committee has ever undertaken. It presents extremely valuable insights into crucial oversight questions and problems that need to be addressed at the CIA. It has been a long, hard fight to get to this point. Especially in the early years of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program, it was a struggle for the Committee to get the most basic information – or any information at all – about the program. Now it is time to move forward. For all of the misinformation, incompetence, and brutality in the CIA’s program, the Committee’s Study is not, and must not be, simply a backward looking condemnation of past mistakes. The Study presents a tremendous opportunity to develop forward looking lessons that must be central to all future intelligence activities. The CIA developed the Detention and Interrogation Program in a time of great fear, anxiety and unprecedented crisis; but it is at these times of crisis when we need sound judgment, excellence, and professionalism from the CIA the most. When mistakes are made, they call for self-reflection and scrutiny. For that process to begin, we first have to make sure there is an accurate public record of what happened. The public release of the Executive Summary and Findings and Conclusions is a tremendous and consequential step toward that goal.
Posted on: Tue, 09 Dec 2014 17:44:39 +0000
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