{"id":164398,"date":"2014-12-10T17:41:43","date_gmt":"2014-12-10T22:41:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webadmin.news-harvard.go-vip.net\/gazette\/gazette\/?p=164398"},"modified":"2019-03-22T14:12:41","modified_gmt":"2019-03-22T18:12:41","slug":"a-mirror-to-coercion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2014\/12\/a-mirror-to-coercion\/","title":{"rendered":"A mirror to coercion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t
\"\"

"To me, the overall conclusions are familiar in general, but all of it is surprising because of the depth of the brutality," said Alberto Mora, a senior fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. "The extent of it is truly much greater than even I imagined it to be." Mora is studying the effects that the torture program has had on U.S. foreign policy.<\/p>

Rose Lincoln\/Harvard Staff Photographer<\/p><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\t

\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tNation & World\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\n\t\t

\n\t\tA mirror to coercion\t<\/h1>\n\n\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t
\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t

\n\t\tChristina Pazzanese\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t

\n\t\t\tHarvard Staff Writer\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/address>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t

\n\t\t\tSenate report reveals sweeping, formalized program of torturing prisoners, former U.S. aide says\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\n<\/header>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\t\t

Completing an inquiry that began in 2009, on Tuesday the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released a long-awaited executive summary of its still-classified report on the broad use of torture techniques against suspected terrorist detainees by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the immediate aftermath of the 9\/11 attacks.<\/em><\/p>\n

The summary report<\/a> paints a grim and disturbing portrait, depicting a rogue agency that for years operated covert detention sites around the world, where as many as 119 prisoners suspected of being al-Qaida affiliates or sympathizers were subjected to brutal, even sadistic treatment at the hands of largely unqualified and unsupervised CIA personnel and private contractors. The document concludes that, to keep the program running, the CIA routinely misled lawmakers, the president, and the public about the scope and severity of its activities, and the value of the intelligence that such treatment yielded. <\/em><\/p>\n

As general counsel for the Department of the U.S. Navy during much of the administration of President George W. Bush, Alberto Mora<\/a> was an early critic of new authorizations by Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to allow the CIA to use waterboarding and other coercive interrogation techniques long viewed under U.S. and international law as illegal. Citing an improper legal basis for such authorizations, Mora helped lead an effort within the Pentagon in 2004 to try to halt the program. <\/em><\/p>\n

Now a fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy<\/a> at Harvard Kennedy School\u00a0<\/a>studying the effects that the torture program has had on U.S. foreign policy, Mora spoke with the Gazette about the report summary and what the findings suggest for the country\u2019s future diplomatic and national security prospects.<\/em><\/p>\n

GAZETTE:<\/strong> You tried to get the Pentagon to dig into this a decade ago. What was your reaction to what you\u2019ve read so far? Was there anything that surprised you about this program, and if so, why?<\/p>\n

MORA:<\/strong> I\u2019ve only just started reading the report, so I\u2019m only about 100 pages into it. And of course, there\u2019s the minority response to that which I haven\u2019t even gotten a start [on], so most of what I\u2019ve learned is from the commentary and the synopses and newspaper articles.<\/p>\n

Part of it is not surprising. To me, the overall conclusions are familiar in general, but all of it is surprising because of the depth of the brutality. The extent of it is truly much greater than even I imagined it to be. And this goes to how difficult it is to report this kind of issue, and how words can often mask the horror of these techniques. Like the \u201cstress positions,\u201d it rolls easily off the tongue, but to be shackled standing up for a week, it\u2019s unthinkable \u2014 the physical effects, the trauma that something like that would create. It would not be considered one of the principle torture techniques, yet it is torture. That certainly continues to be a surprise and engenders a renewed sense of horror.<\/p>\n

Beyond that, the degree of the incompetence masquerading as pseudo-scientific interrogation is also staggering. The fact that these two [cited] psychologists had never interrogated anybody in their lives, had no expertise in the field whatsoever, had no Arabic language expertise, no expertise in the region, simply no background whatsoever, and yet they invented this program and sold it to the CIA for the staggering amount of $81 million over the course of the contract \u2014 and actually applied themselves some of these enhanced interrogation techniques \u2014 was a shock.<\/p>\n

As it was, the CIA personnel involved, many of them, had zero background in this, zero training in any of this, and yet they were the ones who were then administrating and executing the program. The lack of oversight on the part of the CIA, the lack of recordkeeping or accurate reporting not only to Congress but within the administration, demonstrates a program without core, without content other than simple brutality. This is what it appears to amount to, nothing beyond the application of brutality and cruelty to the prisoners in the hope that something will shake free \u2014 nothing more than that.<\/p>\n

Then, the fact that they misrepresented or did not fully report to the White House, to the president himself, to the Department of Justice, to the Secretary of State, and others in an attempt to circumvent or avoid congressional oversight is another truly shocking aspect of the report that represents a separate dimension that needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency.<\/p>\n

GAZETTE:<\/strong> Some former CIA officials, members of the Bush-Cheney administration, and others say the report is deeply flawed because the Senate Intelligence Committee didn\u2019t interview relevant CIA leaders. And they overemphasized negative aspects of the program while understating the value of information obtained through the use of these techniques \u2014 intelligence they say has been vital to national security. Are those valid criticisms, and how credible is this report given what you know?<\/p>\n

MORA:<\/strong> I\u2019m not quite sure how to assess that yet. Part of the reason that these people didn\u2019t speak to the committee was because the CIA would not make them available. There was a fear of prosecution or prosecutorial exposure given the fact that when the Senate investigation started, the Justice Department was itself starting a review of possible prosecution of some of the CIA activities. So that\u2019s what triggered \u2026 Republicans withdrawing from the investigation and the CIA not producing its individuals for questioning or dialogue with the committee staff.<\/p>\n

What the Democrats are saying is that, notwithstanding that they did not talk to or could not talk to the CIA officials, the committee relied on oral histories which are provided in prior oral testimony given by the key members of the interrogation committee. So, to the extent that that provided accurate testimony \u2014 and of course the CIA would know whether or not it was accurate and comprehensive \u2014 to the extent that it did, then the complaint that they were not talked to lacks real substance.<\/p>\n

Having said all of that, ordinarily one would have wanted to have had these individuals\u2019 respond to the allegations as part of the investigative file. That\u2019s customary. It\u2019s regrettable that was not obtained, and the problem with that is that it lends the report to this kind of criticism, it seems to have perhaps at least a smidgen of surface validity or potential validity.<\/p>\n

GAZETTE:<\/strong> The CIA internally concluded decades ago that brutally coercive interrogation techniques like those described in the report too often produced unreliable information. Why then did the agency apparently resume these practices, and on such a broad scale?<\/p>\n

MORA:<\/strong> That goes to the incompetence of the agency and the fact that they weren\u2019t really interested in a scientific approach to this. They were interested in applying brutality \u2026<\/p>\n

GAZETTE:<\/strong> There still seems to be some debate, mostly political, over what constitutes torture and whether actions that were authorized by the president and\/or the Department of Justice can be deemed criminal. What\u2019s the law here; is this settled law?<\/p>\n

MORA:<\/strong> No, it\u2019s not settled at all. I think one of the most important outcomes that any reasonable person can draw from the report is that the treatment of these detainees clearly constituted torture. The scope of the brutality is such that no reasonable person reading those kinds of techniques can have any doubt any longer whether or not this was torture. It was indisputably torture. The rectal hydrations, the rectal feedings, which were not medically required as the report reads, is nothing more than rape. The shackling to the walls for a week, the sleep deprivation for 180 hours, these are torture, and many more of these events were torture.<\/p>\n

Now, it is true that the Department of Justice [DOJ] gave them the green light to do so in what continues to be a shocking breach of professional ethics and legal professionalism. For all the heat that the CIA and the Defense Department have gotten, I think that we need to give much closer attention to the behavior and performance of the Justice Department in this period.<\/p>\n

What is clear is that from the president on down during the Bush administration, there was clear recognition that torture was a crime and that torture should be punished. There was never any deviation from that clear understanding, which only represents an articulation of what is black-letter law in the United States and everywhere else: Torture is a criminal act that will be prosecuted if committed. What happened was the Justice Department then redefined torture much more narrowly, allowing torture to take place, although under seeming legal cover. Going along with this is that even though Justice Department guidance and authorizations to the CIA were shocking, nonetheless they did provide some kinds of limits. One of the things I think people need to look at is the liability, or potential liability, of those who exceeded these very broad authorizations provided by the Department of Justice. It strikes me that if you exceeded the authorizations DOJ provided, then you are a candidate for prosecution.<\/p>\n

GAZETTE:<\/strong> In her foreword, committee chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein doesn\u2019t make any recommendations to Congress or President Barack Obama. Where could \u2014 or should \u2014 things go from here?<\/p>\n

MORA:<\/strong> My understanding is Feinstein and members of the committee are now considering remedial legislation across a range of areas. I haven\u2019t heard yet what they\u2019re thinking about. I would be surprised if it didn\u2019t contain perhaps more-explicit definitions of what constitutes torture and what is prohibited activity, but I\u2019m also virtually certain that it would contain legislation concerning effective oversight of the CIA.<\/p>\n

But I think we all need to digest the report. There\u2019s in a sense too much material, too much that is new, for us to immediately jump to what the next step is going to be.<\/p>\n

In broad measure, this is the start of the reform process. This is the necessary accounting that the American people needed to have in order to then truly base their opinion as to what we did and whether it was wise and whether it was legal and whether it was moral on a factual accounting. We have that now largely, and we can draw the proper conclusions. One of them would be, for example, no longer using the euphemisms to describe this, but calling things by the proper names, and in this case it would be torture. And then, given that we tortured, how are we to respond to that kind of behavior?<\/p>\n

This is an opportunity for the American people to reconsider what our basic rights are concerning the right to be free from cruelty and whether we\u2019re going to rededicate ourselves to a world and a country that is less cruel, not more cruel, and to determine our national direction on this critical aspect of our values.<\/p>\n

This interview was edited for length and clarity.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alberto Mora, a top civilian lawyer for the U.S. Navy in the administration of President George W. Bush and an early critic of the CIA torture program, assesses the findings and conclusions of the newly released Senate Intelligence Committee report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105622744,"featured_media":164400,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"gz_ga_pageviews":0,"gz_ga_lastupdated":"","document_color_palette":"crimson","author":"Christina Pazzanese","affiliation":"Harvard Staff Writer","_category_override":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1378],"tags":[3089,3395,8321,10864,11276,14318,25571,34166,34598],"gazette-formats":[],"series":[],"class_list":["post-164398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nation-world","tag-advanced-leadership-initiative","tag-alberto-mora","tag-cia","tag-dianne-feinstein","tag-donald-rumsfeld","tag-george-bush","tag-news-hub","tag-torture","tag-u-s-senate-select-committee-on-intelligence"],"yoast_head":"\nA mirror to coercion — Harvard Gazette<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Alberto Mora, a top civilian lawyer for the U.S. Navy in the administration of President George W. Bush and an early critic of the CIA torture program, assesses the findings and conclusions of the newly released Senate Intelligence Committee report.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2014\/12\/a-mirror-to-coercion\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A mirror to coercion — Harvard Gazette\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Alberto Mora, a top civilian lawyer for the U.S. Navy in the administration of President George W. Bush and an early critic of the CIA torture program, assesses the findings and conclusions of the newly released Senate Intelligence Committee report.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2014\/12\/a-mirror-to-coercion\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Harvard Gazette\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-12-10T22:41:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-03-22T18:12:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/torturemora_door.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"605\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"403\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"harvardgazette\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2014\/12\/a-mirror-to-coercion\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2014\/12\/a-mirror-to-coercion\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"harvardgazette\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/#\/schema\/person\/78d028cf624923e92682268709ffbc4b\"},\"headline\":\"A mirror to coercion\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-12-10T22:41:43+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-03-22T18:12:41+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2014\/12\/a-mirror-to-coercion\/\"},\"wordCount\":1914,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2014\/12\/a-mirror-to-coercion\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/torturemora_door.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Advanced Leadership Initiative\",\"Alberto Mora\",\"CIA\",\"Dianne Feinstein\",\"Donald Rumsfeld\",\"George Bush\",\"News Hub\",\"Torture\",\"U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Nation & World\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"copyrightYear\":\"2014\",\"copyrightHolder\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/#organization\"}},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2014\/12\/a-mirror-to-coercion\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2014\/12\/a-mirror-to-coercion\/\",\"name\":\"A mirror to coercion — Harvard Gazette\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2014\/12\/a-mirror-to-coercion\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2014\/12\/a-mirror-to-coercion\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/torturemora_door.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-12-10T22:41:43+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-03-22T18:12:41+00:00\",\"description\":\"Alberto Mora, a top civilian lawyer for the U.S. Navy in the administration of President George W. Bush and an early critic of the CIA torture program, assesses the findings and conclusions of the newly released Senate Intelligence Committee report.\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2014\/12\/a-mirror-to-coercion\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2014\/12\/a-mirror-to-coercion\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/torturemora_door.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/torturemora_door.jpg\",\"width\":605,\"height\":403},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/\",\"name\":\"Harvard Gazette\",\"description\":\"Official news from Harvard University covering innovation in teaching, learning, and research\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Harvard Gazette\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Harvard_Gazette_logo.svg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Harvard_Gazette_logo.svg\",\"width\":164,\"height\":64,\"caption\":\"The Harvard Gazette\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"}},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/#\/schema\/person\/78d028cf624923e92682268709ffbc4b\",\"name\":\"harvardgazette\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A mirror to coercion — Harvard Gazette","description":"Alberto Mora, a top civilian lawyer for the U.S. Navy in the administration of President George W. Bush and an early critic of the CIA torture program, assesses the findings and conclusions of the newly released Senate Intelligence Committee report.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2014\/12\/a-mirror-to-coercion\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A mirror to coercion — Harvard Gazette","og_description":"Alberto Mora, a top civilian lawyer for the U.S. Navy in the administration of President George W. Bush and an early critic of the CIA torture program, assesses the findings and conclusions of the newly released Senate Intelligence Committee report.","og_url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2014\/12\/a-mirror-to-coercion\/","og_site_name":"Harvard Gazette","article_published_time":"2014-12-10T22:41:43+00:00","article_modified_time":"2019-03-22T18:12:41+00:00","og_image":[{"width":605,"height":403,"url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/torturemora_door.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"harvardgazette","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2014\/12\/a-mirror-to-coercion\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2014\/12\/a-mirror-to-coercion\/"},"author":{"name":"harvardgazette","@id":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/#\/schema\/person\/78d028cf624923e92682268709ffbc4b"},"headline":"A mirror to coercion","datePublished":"2014-12-10T22:41:43+00:00","dateModified":"2019-03-22T18:12:41+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2014\/12\/a-mirror-to-coercion\/"},"wordCount":1914,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2014\/12\/a-mirror-to-coercion\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/torturemora_door.jpg","keywords":["Advanced Leadership Initiative","Alberto Mora","CIA","Dianne Feinstein","Donald Rumsfeld","George Bush","News Hub","Torture","U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence"],"articleSection":["Nation & World"],"inLanguage":"en-US","copyrightYear":"2014","copyrightHolder":{"@id":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/#organization"}},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2014\/12\/a-mirror-to-coercion\/","url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2014\/12\/a-mirror-to-coercion\/","name":"A mirror to coercion — Harvard Gazette","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2014\/12\/a-mirror-to-coercion\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2014\/12\/a-mirror-to-coercion\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/torturemora_door.jpg","datePublished":"2014-12-10T22:41:43+00:00","dateModified":"2019-03-22T18:12:41+00:00","description":"Alberto Mora, a top civilian lawyer for the U.S. Navy in the administration of President George W. Bush and an early critic of the CIA torture program, assesses the findings and conclusions of the newly released Senate Intelligence Committee report.","inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2014\/12\/a-mirror-to-coercion\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2014\/12\/a-mirror-to-coercion\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/torturemora_door.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/torturemora_door.jpg","width":605,"height":403},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/#website","url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/","name":"Harvard Gazette","description":"Official news from Harvard University covering innovation in teaching, learning, and research","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/#organization","name":"The Harvard Gazette","url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Harvard_Gazette_logo.svg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Harvard_Gazette_logo.svg","width":164,"height":64,"caption":"The Harvard Gazette"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/#\/schema\/person\/78d028cf624923e92682268709ffbc4b","name":"harvardgazette"}]}},"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","canonical_url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2014\/12\/a-mirror-to-coercion\/","smart_links":{"inbound":0,"outbound":0},"traffic_boost_suggestions_count":0,"meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"A mirror to coercion","url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2014\/12\/a-mirror-to-coercion\/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2014\/12\/a-mirror-to-coercion\/"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/torturemora_door.jpg?w=150","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/torturemora_door.jpg"},"articleSection":"Nation & World","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"harvardgazette"}],"creator":["harvardgazette"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Harvard Gazette","logo":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Harvard_Gazette_logo.svg"},"keywords":["advanced leadership initiative","alberto mora","cia","dianne feinstein","donald rumsfeld","george bush","news hub","torture","u.s. senate select committee on intelligence"],"dateCreated":"2014-12-10T22:41:43Z","datePublished":"2014-12-10T22:41:43Z","dateModified":"2019-03-22T18:12:41Z"},"rendered":"<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"wp-parsely-metadata\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@type\":\"NewsArticle\",\"headline\":\"A mirror to coercion\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/news.harvard.edu\\\/gazette\\\/story\\\/2014\\\/12\\\/a-mirror-to-coercion\\\/\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/news.harvard.edu\\\/gazette\\\/story\\\/2014\\\/12\\\/a-mirror-to-coercion\\\/\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/news.harvard.edu\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2014\\\/12\\\/torturemora_door.jpg?w=150\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/news.harvard.edu\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2014\\\/12\\\/torturemora_door.jpg\"},\"articleSection\":\"Nation & World\",\"author\":[{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"harvardgazette\"}],\"creator\":[\"harvardgazette\"],\"publisher\":{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"name\":\"Harvard Gazette\",\"logo\":\"https:\\\/\\\/news.harvard.edu\\\/gazette\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2023\\\/12\\\/Harvard_Gazette_logo.svg\"},\"keywords\":[\"advanced leadership initiative\",\"alberto mora\",\"cia\",\"dianne feinstein\",\"donald rumsfeld\",\"george bush\",\"news hub\",\"torture\",\"u.s. senate select committee on intelligence\"],\"dateCreated\":\"2014-12-10T22:41:43Z\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-12-10T22:41:43Z\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-03-22T18:12:41Z\"}<\/script>","tracker_url":"https:\/\/cdn.parsely.com\/keys\/news.harvard.edu\/p.js"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/torturemora_door.jpg","has_blocks":true,"block_data":{"0":{"blockName":"harvard-gazette\/article-header","attrs":{"blockColorPalette":"","coloredHeading":"","creditText":"Rose Lincoln\/Harvard Staff Photographer","displayDetails":"","displayTitle":"","categoryId":1378,"mediaAlt":"","mediaCaption":"\"To me, the overall conclusions are familiar in general, but all of it is surprising because of the depth of the brutality,\" said Alberto Mora, a senior fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. \"The extent of it is truly much greater than even I imagined it to be.\" Mora is studying the effects that the torture program has had on U.S. foreign policy.","mediaId":164400,"mediaSize":"full","mediaType":"image","mediaUrl":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/torturemora_door.jpg","poster":"","title":"A mirror to coercion","subheading":"Senate report reveals sweeping, formalized program of torturing prisoners, former U.S. aide says","centeredImage":true,"className":"is-style-full-width-text-below","mediaHeight":403,"mediaWidth":605,"backgroundFixed":false,"backgroundTone":"light","coloredBackground":false,"displayOverlay":true,"fadeInText":false,"isAmbient":false,"mediaLength":"","mediaPosition":"","posterText":"","titleAbove":false,"useUncroppedImage":false,"lock":[],"metadata":[]},"innerBlocks":[],"innerHTML":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img alt=\"\" height=\"403\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/torturemora_door.jpg\" width=\"605\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><p class=\"wp-element-caption--caption\">"To me, the overall conclusions are familiar in general, but all of it is surprising because of the depth of the brutality," said Alberto Mora, a senior fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. "The extent of it is truly much greater than even I imagined it to be." Mora is studying the effects that the torture program has had on U.S. foreign policy.<\/p><p class=\"wp-element-caption--credit\">Rose Lincoln\/Harvard Staff Photographer<\/p><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","innerContent":["<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img alt=\"\" height=\"403\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/torturemora_door.jpg\" width=\"605\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><p class=\"wp-element-caption--caption\">"To me, the overall conclusions are familiar in general, but all of it is surprising because of the depth of the brutality," said Alberto Mora, a senior fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. "The extent of it is truly much greater than even I imagined it to be." Mora is studying the effects that the torture program has had on U.S. foreign policy.<\/p><p class=\"wp-element-caption--credit\">Rose Lincoln\/Harvard Staff Photographer<\/p><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n"],"rendered":"<header\n\tclass=\"wp-block-harvard-gazette-article-header alignfull article-header is-style-full-width-text-below centered-image\"\n\tstyle=\" \"\n>\n\t<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img alt=\"\" height=\"403\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/torturemora_door.jpg\" width=\"605\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><p class=\"wp-element-caption--caption\">"To me, the overall conclusions are familiar in general, but all of it is surprising because of the depth of the brutality," said Alberto Mora, a senior fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. "The extent of it is truly much greater than even I imagined it to be." Mora is studying the effects that the torture program has had on U.S. foreign policy.<\/p><p class=\"wp-element-caption--credit\">Rose Lincoln\/Harvard Staff Photographer<\/p><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\t<div class=\"article-header__content\">\n\t\t\t<a\n\t\t\tclass=\"article-header__category\"\n\t\t\thref=\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/section\/nation-world\/\"\n\t\t>\n\t\t\tNation & World\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\n\t\t<h1 class=\"article-header__title wp-block-heading \">\n\t\tA mirror to coercion\t<\/h1>\n\n\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t<div class=\"article-header__meta\">\n\t\t<div class=\"wp-block-post-author\">\n\t\t\t<address class=\"wp-block-post-author__content\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"author wp-block-post-author__name\">\n\t\tChristina Pazzanese\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p class=\"wp-block-post-author__byline\">\n\t\t\tHarvard Staff Writer\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/address>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t<time class=\"article-header__date\" datetime=\"2014-12-10\">\n\t\t\tDecember 10, 2014\t\t<\/time>\n\n\t\t<span class=\"article-header__reading-time\">\n\t\t\tlong read\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n\t\t\t<h2 class=\"article-header__subheading wp-block-heading\">\n\t\t\tSenate report reveals sweeping, formalized program of torturing prisoners, former U.S. aide says\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\n<\/header>\n"},"2":{"blockName":"core\/group","attrs":{"templateLock":false,"metadata":{"name":"Article content"},"align":"wide","layout":{"type":"constrained","justifyContent":"center"},"tagName":"div","lock":[],"className":"","style":[],"backgroundColor":"","textColor":"","gradient":"","fontSize":"","fontFamily":"","borderColor":"","ariaLabel":"","anchor":""},"innerBlocks":[{"blockName":"core\/freeform","attrs":{"content":"","lock":[],"metadata":[]},"innerBlocks":[],"innerHTML":"\n\t\t<p><em>Completing an inquiry that began in 2009, on Tuesday the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released a long-awaited executive summary of its still-classified report on the broad use of torture techniques against suspected terrorist detainees by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the immediate aftermath of the 9\/11 attacks.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2014\/12\/09\/world\/cia-torture-report-document.html\">summary report<\/a> paints a grim and disturbing portrait, depicting a rogue agency that for years operated covert detention sites around the world, where as many as 119 prisoners suspected of being al-Qaida affiliates or sympathizers were subjected to brutal, even sadistic treatment at the hands of largely unqualified and unsupervised CIA personnel and private contractors. The document concludes that, to keep the program running, the CIA routinely misled lawmakers, the president, and the public about the scope and severity of its activities, and the value of the intelligence that such treatment yielded. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>As general counsel for the Department of the U.S. Navy during much of the administration of President George W. Bush, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jfklibrary.org\/Events-and-Awards\/Profile-in-Courage-Award\/Award-Recipients\/Alberto-Mora-2006.aspx\">Alberto Mora<\/a> was an early critic of new authorizations by Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to allow the CIA to use waterboarding and other coercive interrogation techniques long viewed under U.S. and international law as illegal. Citing an improper legal basis for such authorizations, Mora helped lead an effort within the Pentagon in 2004 to try to halt the program. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Now a fellow at the <a href=\"https:\/\/carrcenter.hks.harvard.edu\">Carr Center for Human Rights Policy<\/a> at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hks.harvard.edu\/\">Harvard Kennedy School\u00a0<\/a>studying the effects that the torture program has had on U.S. foreign policy, Mora spoke with the Gazette about the report summary and what the findings suggest for the country\u2019s future diplomatic and national security prospects.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>GAZETTE:<\/strong> You tried to get the Pentagon to dig into this a decade ago. What was your reaction to what you\u2019ve read so far? Was there anything that surprised you about this program, and if so, why?<\/p>\n<p><strong>MORA:<\/strong> I\u2019ve only just started reading the report, so I\u2019m only about 100 pages into it. And of course, there\u2019s the minority response to that which I haven\u2019t even gotten a start [on], so most of what I\u2019ve learned is from the commentary and the synopses and newspaper articles.<\/p>\n<p>Part of it is not surprising. To me, the overall conclusions are familiar in general, but all of it is surprising because of the depth of the brutality. The extent of it is truly much greater than even I imagined it to be. And this goes to how difficult it is to report this kind of issue, and how words can often mask the horror of these techniques. Like the \u201cstress positions,\u201d it rolls easily off the tongue, but to be shackled standing up for a week, it\u2019s unthinkable \u2014 the physical effects, the trauma that something like that would create. It would not be considered one of the principle torture techniques, yet it is torture. That certainly continues to be a surprise and engenders a renewed sense of horror.<\/p>\n<p>Beyond that, the degree of the incompetence masquerading as pseudo-scientific interrogation is also staggering. The fact that these two [cited] psychologists had never interrogated anybody in their lives, had no expertise in the field whatsoever, had no Arabic language expertise, no expertise in the region, simply no background whatsoever, and yet they invented this program and sold it to the CIA for the staggering amount of $81 million over the course of the contract \u2014 and actually applied themselves some of these enhanced interrogation techniques \u2014 was a shock.<\/p>\n<p>As it was, the CIA personnel involved, many of them, had zero background in this, zero training in any of this, and yet they were the ones who were then administrating and executing the program. The lack of oversight on the part of the CIA, the lack of recordkeeping or accurate reporting not only to Congress but within the administration, demonstrates a program without core, without content other than simple brutality. This is what it appears to amount to, nothing beyond the application of brutality and cruelty to the prisoners in the hope that something will shake free \u2014 nothing more than that.<\/p>\n<p>Then, the fact that they misrepresented or did not fully report to the White House, to the president himself, to the Department of Justice, to the Secretary of State, and others in an attempt to circumvent or avoid congressional oversight is another truly shocking aspect of the report that represents a separate dimension that needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency.<\/p>\n<p><strong>GAZETTE:<\/strong> Some former CIA officials, members of the Bush-Cheney administration, and others say the report is deeply flawed because the Senate Intelligence Committee didn\u2019t interview relevant CIA leaders. And they overemphasized negative aspects of the program while understating the value of information obtained through the use of these techniques \u2014 intelligence they say has been vital to national security. Are those valid criticisms, and how credible is this report given what you know?<\/p>\n<p><strong>MORA:<\/strong> I\u2019m not quite sure how to assess that yet. Part of the reason that these people didn\u2019t speak to the committee was because the CIA would not make them available. There was a fear of prosecution or prosecutorial exposure given the fact that when the Senate investigation started, the Justice Department was itself starting a review of possible prosecution of some of the CIA activities. So that\u2019s what triggered \u2026 Republicans withdrawing from the investigation and the CIA not producing its individuals for questioning or dialogue with the committee staff.<\/p>\n<p>What the Democrats are saying is that, notwithstanding that they did not talk to or could not talk to the CIA officials, the committee relied on oral histories which are provided in prior oral testimony given by the key members of the interrogation committee. So, to the extent that that provided accurate testimony \u2014 and of course the CIA would know whether or not it was accurate and comprehensive \u2014 to the extent that it did, then the complaint that they were not talked to lacks real substance.<\/p>\n<p>Having said all of that, ordinarily one would have wanted to have had these individuals\u2019 respond to the allegations as part of the investigative file. That\u2019s customary. It\u2019s regrettable that was not obtained, and the problem with that is that it lends the report to this kind of criticism, it seems to have perhaps at least a smidgen of surface validity or potential validity.<\/p>\n<p><strong>GAZETTE:<\/strong> The CIA internally concluded decades ago that brutally coercive interrogation techniques like those described in the report too often produced unreliable information. Why then did the agency apparently resume these practices, and on such a broad scale?<\/p>\n<p><strong>MORA:<\/strong> That goes to the incompetence of the agency and the fact that they weren\u2019t really interested in a scientific approach to this. They were interested in applying brutality \u2026<\/p>\n<p><strong>GAZETTE:<\/strong> There still seems to be some debate, mostly political, over what constitutes torture and whether actions that were authorized by the president and\/or the Department of Justice can be deemed criminal. What\u2019s the law here; is this settled law?<\/p>\n<p><strong>MORA:<\/strong> No, it\u2019s not settled at all. I think one of the most important outcomes that any reasonable person can draw from the report is that the treatment of these detainees clearly constituted torture. The scope of the brutality is such that no reasonable person reading those kinds of techniques can have any doubt any longer whether or not this was torture. It was indisputably torture. The rectal hydrations, the rectal feedings, which were not medically required as the report reads, is nothing more than rape. The shackling to the walls for a week, the sleep deprivation for 180 hours, these are torture, and many more of these events were torture.<\/p>\n<p>Now, it is true that the Department of Justice [DOJ] gave them the green light to do so in what continues to be a shocking breach of professional ethics and legal professionalism. For all the heat that the CIA and the Defense Department have gotten, I think that we need to give much closer attention to the behavior and performance of the Justice Department in this period.<\/p>\n<p>What is clear is that from the president on down during the Bush administration, there was clear recognition that torture was a crime and that torture should be punished. There was never any deviation from that clear understanding, which only represents an articulation of what is black-letter law in the United States and everywhere else: Torture is a criminal act that will be prosecuted if committed. What happened was the Justice Department then redefined torture much more narrowly, allowing torture to take place, although under seeming legal cover. Going along with this is that even though Justice Department guidance and authorizations to the CIA were shocking, nonetheless they did provide some kinds of limits. One of the things I think people need to look at is the liability, or potential liability, of those who exceeded these very broad authorizations provided by the Department of Justice. It strikes me that if you exceeded the authorizations DOJ provided, then you are a candidate for prosecution.<\/p>\n<p><strong>GAZETTE:<\/strong> In her foreword, committee chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein doesn\u2019t make any recommendations to Congress or President Barack Obama. Where could \u2014 or should \u2014 things go from here?<\/p>\n<p><strong>MORA:<\/strong> My understanding is Feinstein and members of the committee are now considering remedial legislation across a range of areas. I haven\u2019t heard yet what they\u2019re thinking about. I would be surprised if it didn\u2019t contain perhaps more-explicit definitions of what constitutes torture and what is prohibited activity, but I\u2019m also virtually certain that it would contain legislation concerning effective oversight of the CIA.<\/p>\n<p>But I think we all need to digest the report. There\u2019s in a sense too much material, too much that is new, for us to immediately jump to what the next step is going to be.<\/p>\n<p>In broad measure, this is the start of the reform process. This is the necessary accounting that the American people needed to have in order to then truly base their opinion as to what we did and whether it was wise and whether it was legal and whether it was moral on a factual accounting. We have that now largely, and we can draw the proper conclusions. One of them would be, for example, no longer using the euphemisms to describe this, but calling things by the proper names, and in this case it would be torture. And then, given that we tortured, how are we to respond to that kind of behavior?<\/p>\n<p>This is an opportunity for the American people to reconsider what our basic rights are concerning the right to be free from cruelty and whether we\u2019re going to rededicate ourselves to a world and a country that is less cruel, not more cruel, and to determine our national direction on this critical aspect of our values.<\/p>\n<p><em>This interview was edited for length and clarity.<\/em><\/p>\n","innerContent":["\n\t\t<p><em>Completing an inquiry that began in 2009, on Tuesday the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released a long-awaited executive summary of its still-classified report on the broad use of torture techniques against suspected terrorist detainees by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the immediate aftermath of the 9\/11 attacks.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2014\/12\/09\/world\/cia-torture-report-document.html\">summary report<\/a> paints a grim and disturbing portrait, depicting a rogue agency that for years operated covert detention sites around the world, where as many as 119 prisoners suspected of being al-Qaida affiliates or sympathizers were subjected to brutal, even sadistic treatment at the hands of largely unqualified and unsupervised CIA personnel and private contractors. The document concludes that, to keep the program running, the CIA routinely misled lawmakers, the president, and the public about the scope and severity of its activities, and the value of the intelligence that such treatment yielded. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>As general counsel for the Department of the U.S. Navy during much of the administration of President George W. Bush, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jfklibrary.org\/Events-and-Awards\/Profile-in-Courage-Award\/Award-Recipients\/Alberto-Mora-2006.aspx\">Alberto Mora<\/a> was an early critic of new authorizations by Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to allow the CIA to use waterboarding and other coercive interrogation techniques long viewed under U.S. and international law as illegal. Citing an improper legal basis for such authorizations, Mora helped lead an effort within the Pentagon in 2004 to try to halt the program. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Now a fellow at the <a href=\"https:\/\/carrcenter.hks.harvard.edu\">Carr Center for Human Rights Policy<\/a> at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hks.harvard.edu\/\">Harvard Kennedy School\u00a0<\/a>studying the effects that the torture program has had on U.S. foreign policy, Mora spoke with the Gazette about the report summary and what the findings suggest for the country\u2019s future diplomatic and national security prospects.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>GAZETTE:<\/strong> You tried to get the Pentagon to dig into this a decade ago. What was your reaction to what you\u2019ve read so far? Was there anything that surprised you about this program, and if so, why?<\/p>\n<p><strong>MORA:<\/strong> I\u2019ve only just started reading the report, so I\u2019m only about 100 pages into it. And of course, there\u2019s the minority response to that which I haven\u2019t even gotten a start [on], so most of what I\u2019ve learned is from the commentary and the synopses and newspaper articles.<\/p>\n<p>Part of it is not surprising. To me, the overall conclusions are familiar in general, but all of it is surprising because of the depth of the brutality. The extent of it is truly much greater than even I imagined it to be. And this goes to how difficult it is to report this kind of issue, and how words can often mask the horror of these techniques. Like the \u201cstress positions,\u201d it rolls easily off the tongue, but to be shackled standing up for a week, it\u2019s unthinkable \u2014 the physical effects, the trauma that something like that would create. It would not be considered one of the principle torture techniques, yet it is torture. That certainly continues to be a surprise and engenders a renewed sense of horror.<\/p>\n<p>Beyond that, the degree of the incompetence masquerading as pseudo-scientific interrogation is also staggering. The fact that these two [cited] psychologists had never interrogated anybody in their lives, had no expertise in the field whatsoever, had no Arabic language expertise, no expertise in the region, simply no background whatsoever, and yet they invented this program and sold it to the CIA for the staggering amount of $81 million over the course of the contract \u2014 and actually applied themselves some of these enhanced interrogation techniques \u2014 was a shock.<\/p>\n<p>As it was, the CIA personnel involved, many of them, had zero background in this, zero training in any of this, and yet they were the ones who were then administrating and executing the program. The lack of oversight on the part of the CIA, the lack of recordkeeping or accurate reporting not only to Congress but within the administration, demonstrates a program without core, without content other than simple brutality. This is what it appears to amount to, nothing beyond the application of brutality and cruelty to the prisoners in the hope that something will shake free \u2014 nothing more than that.<\/p>\n<p>Then, the fact that they misrepresented or did not fully report to the White House, to the president himself, to the Department of Justice, to the Secretary of State, and others in an attempt to circumvent or avoid congressional oversight is another truly shocking aspect of the report that represents a separate dimension that needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency.<\/p>\n<p><strong>GAZETTE:<\/strong> Some former CIA officials, members of the Bush-Cheney administration, and others say the report is deeply flawed because the Senate Intelligence Committee didn\u2019t interview relevant CIA leaders. And they overemphasized negative aspects of the program while understating the value of information obtained through the use of these techniques \u2014 intelligence they say has been vital to national security. Are those valid criticisms, and how credible is this report given what you know?<\/p>\n<p><strong>MORA:<\/strong> I\u2019m not quite sure how to assess that yet. Part of the reason that these people didn\u2019t speak to the committee was because the CIA would not make them available. There was a fear of prosecution or prosecutorial exposure given the fact that when the Senate investigation started, the Justice Department was itself starting a review of possible prosecution of some of the CIA activities. So that\u2019s what triggered \u2026 Republicans withdrawing from the investigation and the CIA not producing its individuals for questioning or dialogue with the committee staff.<\/p>\n<p>What the Democrats are saying is that, notwithstanding that they did not talk to or could not talk to the CIA officials, the committee relied on oral histories which are provided in prior oral testimony given by the key members of the interrogation committee. So, to the extent that that provided accurate testimony \u2014 and of course the CIA would know whether or not it was accurate and comprehensive \u2014 to the extent that it did, then the complaint that they were not talked to lacks real substance.<\/p>\n<p>Having said all of that, ordinarily one would have wanted to have had these individuals\u2019 respond to the allegations as part of the investigative file. That\u2019s customary. It\u2019s regrettable that was not obtained, and the problem with that is that it lends the report to this kind of criticism, it seems to have perhaps at least a smidgen of surface validity or potential validity.<\/p>\n<p><strong>GAZETTE:<\/strong> The CIA internally concluded decades ago that brutally coercive interrogation techniques like those described in the report too often produced unreliable information. Why then did the agency apparently resume these practices, and on such a broad scale?<\/p>\n<p><strong>MORA:<\/strong> That goes to the incompetence of the agency and the fact that they weren\u2019t really interested in a scientific approach to this. They were interested in applying brutality \u2026<\/p>\n<p><strong>GAZETTE:<\/strong> There still seems to be some debate, mostly political, over what constitutes torture and whether actions that were authorized by the president and\/or the Department of Justice can be deemed criminal. What\u2019s the law here; is this settled law?<\/p>\n<p><strong>MORA:<\/strong> No, it\u2019s not settled at all. I think one of the most important outcomes that any reasonable person can draw from the report is that the treatment of these detainees clearly constituted torture. The scope of the brutality is such that no reasonable person reading those kinds of techniques can have any doubt any longer whether or not this was torture. It was indisputably torture. The rectal hydrations, the rectal feedings, which were not medically required as the report reads, is nothing more than rape. The shackling to the walls for a week, the sleep deprivation for 180 hours, these are torture, and many more of these events were torture.<\/p>\n<p>Now, it is true that the Department of Justice [DOJ] gave them the green light to do so in what continues to be a shocking breach of professional ethics and legal professionalism. For all the heat that the CIA and the Defense Department have gotten, I think that we need to give much closer attention to the behavior and performance of the Justice Department in this period.<\/p>\n<p>What is clear is that from the president on down during the Bush administration, there was clear recognition that torture was a crime and that torture should be punished. There was never any deviation from that clear understanding, which only represents an articulation of what is black-letter law in the United States and everywhere else: Torture is a criminal act that will be prosecuted if committed. What happened was the Justice Department then redefined torture much more narrowly, allowing torture to take place, although under seeming legal cover. Going along with this is that even though Justice Department guidance and authorizations to the CIA were shocking, nonetheless they did provide some kinds of limits. One of the things I think people need to look at is the liability, or potential liability, of those who exceeded these very broad authorizations provided by the Department of Justice. It strikes me that if you exceeded the authorizations DOJ provided, then you are a candidate for prosecution.<\/p>\n<p><strong>GAZETTE:<\/strong> In her foreword, committee chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein doesn\u2019t make any recommendations to Congress or President Barack Obama. Where could \u2014 or should \u2014 things go from here?<\/p>\n<p><strong>MORA:<\/strong> My understanding is Feinstein and members of the committee are now considering remedial legislation across a range of areas. I haven\u2019t heard yet what they\u2019re thinking about. I would be surprised if it didn\u2019t contain perhaps more-explicit definitions of what constitutes torture and what is prohibited activity, but I\u2019m also virtually certain that it would contain legislation concerning effective oversight of the CIA.<\/p>\n<p>But I think we all need to digest the report. There\u2019s in a sense too much material, too much that is new, for us to immediately jump to what the next step is going to be.<\/p>\n<p>In broad measure, this is the start of the reform process. This is the necessary accounting that the American people needed to have in order to then truly base their opinion as to what we did and whether it was wise and whether it was legal and whether it was moral on a factual accounting. We have that now largely, and we can draw the proper conclusions. One of them would be, for example, no longer using the euphemisms to describe this, but calling things by the proper names, and in this case it would be torture. And then, given that we tortured, how are we to respond to that kind of behavior?<\/p>\n<p>This is an opportunity for the American people to reconsider what our basic rights are concerning the right to be free from cruelty and whether we\u2019re going to rededicate ourselves to a world and a country that is less cruel, not more cruel, and to determine our national direction on this critical aspect of our values.<\/p>\n<p><em>This interview was edited for length and clarity.<\/em><\/p>\n"],"rendered":"\n\t\t<p><em>Completing an inquiry that began in 2009, on Tuesday the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released a long-awaited executive summary of its still-classified report on the broad use of torture techniques against suspected terrorist detainees by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the immediate aftermath of the 9\/11 attacks.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2014\/12\/09\/world\/cia-torture-report-document.html\">summary report<\/a> paints a grim and disturbing portrait, depicting a rogue agency that for years operated covert detention sites around the world, where as many as 119 prisoners suspected of being al-Qaida affiliates or sympathizers were subjected to brutal, even sadistic treatment at the hands of largely unqualified and unsupervised CIA personnel and private contractors. The document concludes that, to keep the program running, the CIA routinely misled lawmakers, the president, and the public about the scope and severity of its activities, and the value of the intelligence that such treatment yielded. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>As general counsel for the Department of the U.S. Navy during much of the administration of President George W. Bush, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jfklibrary.org\/Events-and-Awards\/Profile-in-Courage-Award\/Award-Recipients\/Alberto-Mora-2006.aspx\">Alberto Mora<\/a> was an early critic of new authorizations by Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to allow the CIA to use waterboarding and other coercive interrogation techniques long viewed under U.S. and international law as illegal. Citing an improper legal basis for such authorizations, Mora helped lead an effort within the Pentagon in 2004 to try to halt the program. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Now a fellow at the <a href=\"https:\/\/carrcenter.hks.harvard.edu\">Carr Center for Human Rights Policy<\/a> at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hks.harvard.edu\/\">Harvard Kennedy School\u00a0<\/a>studying the effects that the torture program has had on U.S. foreign policy, Mora spoke with the Gazette about the report summary and what the findings suggest for the country\u2019s future diplomatic and national security prospects.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>GAZETTE:<\/strong> You tried to get the Pentagon to dig into this a decade ago. What was your reaction to what you\u2019ve read so far? Was there anything that surprised you about this program, and if so, why?<\/p>\n<p><strong>MORA:<\/strong> I\u2019ve only just started reading the report, so I\u2019m only about 100 pages into it. And of course, there\u2019s the minority response to that which I haven\u2019t even gotten a start [on], so most of what I\u2019ve learned is from the commentary and the synopses and newspaper articles.<\/p>\n<p>Part of it is not surprising. To me, the overall conclusions are familiar in general, but all of it is surprising because of the depth of the brutality. The extent of it is truly much greater than even I imagined it to be. And this goes to how difficult it is to report this kind of issue, and how words can often mask the horror of these techniques. Like the \u201cstress positions,\u201d it rolls easily off the tongue, but to be shackled standing up for a week, it\u2019s unthinkable \u2014 the physical effects, the trauma that something like that would create. It would not be considered one of the principle torture techniques, yet it is torture. That certainly continues to be a surprise and engenders a renewed sense of horror.<\/p>\n<p>Beyond that, the degree of the incompetence masquerading as pseudo-scientific interrogation is also staggering. The fact that these two [cited] psychologists had never interrogated anybody in their lives, had no expertise in the field whatsoever, had no Arabic language expertise, no expertise in the region, simply no background whatsoever, and yet they invented this program and sold it to the CIA for the staggering amount of $81 million over the course of the contract \u2014 and actually applied themselves some of these enhanced interrogation techniques \u2014 was a shock.<\/p>\n<p>As it was, the CIA personnel involved, many of them, had zero background in this, zero training in any of this, and yet they were the ones who were then administrating and executing the program. The lack of oversight on the part of the CIA, the lack of recordkeeping or accurate reporting not only to Congress but within the administration, demonstrates a program without core, without content other than simple brutality. This is what it appears to amount to, nothing beyond the application of brutality and cruelty to the prisoners in the hope that something will shake free \u2014 nothing more than that.<\/p>\n<p>Then, the fact that they misrepresented or did not fully report to the White House, to the president himself, to the Department of Justice, to the Secretary of State, and others in an attempt to circumvent or avoid congressional oversight is another truly shocking aspect of the report that represents a separate dimension that needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency.<\/p>\n<p><strong>GAZETTE:<\/strong> Some former CIA officials, members of the Bush-Cheney administration, and others say the report is deeply flawed because the Senate Intelligence Committee didn\u2019t interview relevant CIA leaders. And they overemphasized negative aspects of the program while understating the value of information obtained through the use of these techniques \u2014 intelligence they say has been vital to national security. Are those valid criticisms, and how credible is this report given what you know?<\/p>\n<p><strong>MORA:<\/strong> I\u2019m not quite sure how to assess that yet. Part of the reason that these people didn\u2019t speak to the committee was because the CIA would not make them available. There was a fear of prosecution or prosecutorial exposure given the fact that when the Senate investigation started, the Justice Department was itself starting a review of possible prosecution of some of the CIA activities. So that\u2019s what triggered \u2026 Republicans withdrawing from the investigation and the CIA not producing its individuals for questioning or dialogue with the committee staff.<\/p>\n<p>What the Democrats are saying is that, notwithstanding that they did not talk to or could not talk to the CIA officials, the committee relied on oral histories which are provided in prior oral testimony given by the key members of the interrogation committee. So, to the extent that that provided accurate testimony \u2014 and of course the CIA would know whether or not it was accurate and comprehensive \u2014 to the extent that it did, then the complaint that they were not talked to lacks real substance.<\/p>\n<p>Having said all of that, ordinarily one would have wanted to have had these individuals\u2019 respond to the allegations as part of the investigative file. That\u2019s customary. It\u2019s regrettable that was not obtained, and the problem with that is that it lends the report to this kind of criticism, it seems to have perhaps at least a smidgen of surface validity or potential validity.<\/p>\n<p><strong>GAZETTE:<\/strong> The CIA internally concluded decades ago that brutally coercive interrogation techniques like those described in the report too often produced unreliable information. Why then did the agency apparently resume these practices, and on such a broad scale?<\/p>\n<p><strong>MORA:<\/strong> That goes to the incompetence of the agency and the fact that they weren\u2019t really interested in a scientific approach to this. They were interested in applying brutality \u2026<\/p>\n<p><strong>GAZETTE:<\/strong> There still seems to be some debate, mostly political, over what constitutes torture and whether actions that were authorized by the president and\/or the Department of Justice can be deemed criminal. What\u2019s the law here; is this settled law?<\/p>\n<p><strong>MORA:<\/strong> No, it\u2019s not settled at all. I think one of the most important outcomes that any reasonable person can draw from the report is that the treatment of these detainees clearly constituted torture. The scope of the brutality is such that no reasonable person reading those kinds of techniques can have any doubt any longer whether or not this was torture. It was indisputably torture. The rectal hydrations, the rectal feedings, which were not medically required as the report reads, is nothing more than rape. The shackling to the walls for a week, the sleep deprivation for 180 hours, these are torture, and many more of these events were torture.<\/p>\n<p>Now, it is true that the Department of Justice [DOJ] gave them the green light to do so in what continues to be a shocking breach of professional ethics and legal professionalism. For all the heat that the CIA and the Defense Department have gotten, I think that we need to give much closer attention to the behavior and performance of the Justice Department in this period.<\/p>\n<p>What is clear is that from the president on down during the Bush administration, there was clear recognition that torture was a crime and that torture should be punished. There was never any deviation from that clear understanding, which only represents an articulation of what is black-letter law in the United States and everywhere else: Torture is a criminal act that will be prosecuted if committed. What happened was the Justice Department then redefined torture much more narrowly, allowing torture to take place, although under seeming legal cover. Going along with this is that even though Justice Department guidance and authorizations to the CIA were shocking, nonetheless they did provide some kinds of limits. One of the things I think people need to look at is the liability, or potential liability, of those who exceeded these very broad authorizations provided by the Department of Justice. It strikes me that if you exceeded the authorizations DOJ provided, then you are a candidate for prosecution.<\/p>\n<p><strong>GAZETTE:<\/strong> In her foreword, committee chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein doesn\u2019t make any recommendations to Congress or President Barack Obama. Where could \u2014 or should \u2014 things go from here?<\/p>\n<p><strong>MORA:<\/strong> My understanding is Feinstein and members of the committee are now considering remedial legislation across a range of areas. I haven\u2019t heard yet what they\u2019re thinking about. I would be surprised if it didn\u2019t contain perhaps more-explicit definitions of what constitutes torture and what is prohibited activity, but I\u2019m also virtually certain that it would contain legislation concerning effective oversight of the CIA.<\/p>\n<p>But I think we all need to digest the report. There\u2019s in a sense too much material, too much that is new, for us to immediately jump to what the next step is going to be.<\/p>\n<p>In broad measure, this is the start of the reform process. This is the necessary accounting that the American people needed to have in order to then truly base their opinion as to what we did and whether it was wise and whether it was legal and whether it was moral on a factual accounting. We have that now largely, and we can draw the proper conclusions. One of them would be, for example, no longer using the euphemisms to describe this, but calling things by the proper names, and in this case it would be torture. And then, given that we tortured, how are we to respond to that kind of behavior?<\/p>\n<p>This is an opportunity for the American people to reconsider what our basic rights are concerning the right to be free from cruelty and whether we\u2019re going to rededicate ourselves to a world and a country that is less cruel, not more cruel, and to determine our national direction on this critical aspect of our values.<\/p>\n<p><em>This interview was edited for length and clarity.<\/em><\/p>\n"}],"innerHTML":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-group alignwide\">\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n","innerContent":["\n<div class=\"wp-block-group alignwide\">\n\n","\n\n<\/div>\n"],"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-group alignwide has-global-padding is-content-justification-center is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n\n\n\t\t<p><em>Completing an inquiry that began in 2009, on Tuesday the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released a long-awaited executive summary of its still-classified report on the broad use of torture techniques against suspected terrorist detainees by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the immediate aftermath of the 9\/11 attacks.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2014\/12\/09\/world\/cia-torture-report-document.html\">summary report<\/a> paints a grim and disturbing portrait, depicting a rogue agency that for years operated covert detention sites around the world, where as many as 119 prisoners suspected of being al-Qaida affiliates or sympathizers were subjected to brutal, even sadistic treatment at the hands of largely unqualified and unsupervised CIA personnel and private contractors. The document concludes that, to keep the program running, the CIA routinely misled lawmakers, the president, and the public about the scope and severity of its activities, and the value of the intelligence that such treatment yielded. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>As general counsel for the Department of the U.S. Navy during much of the administration of President George W. Bush, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jfklibrary.org\/Events-and-Awards\/Profile-in-Courage-Award\/Award-Recipients\/Alberto-Mora-2006.aspx\">Alberto Mora<\/a> was an early critic of new authorizations by Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to allow the CIA to use waterboarding and other coercive interrogation techniques long viewed under U.S. and international law as illegal. Citing an improper legal basis for such authorizations, Mora helped lead an effort within the Pentagon in 2004 to try to halt the program. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Now a fellow at the <a href=\"https:\/\/carrcenter.hks.harvard.edu\">Carr Center for Human Rights Policy<\/a> at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hks.harvard.edu\/\">Harvard Kennedy School\u00a0<\/a>studying the effects that the torture program has had on U.S. foreign policy, Mora spoke with the Gazette about the report summary and what the findings suggest for the country\u2019s future diplomatic and national security prospects.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>GAZETTE:<\/strong> You tried to get the Pentagon to dig into this a decade ago. What was your reaction to what you\u2019ve read so far? Was there anything that surprised you about this program, and if so, why?<\/p>\n<p><strong>MORA:<\/strong> I\u2019ve only just started reading the report, so I\u2019m only about 100 pages into it. And of course, there\u2019s the minority response to that which I haven\u2019t even gotten a start [on], so most of what I\u2019ve learned is from the commentary and the synopses and newspaper articles.<\/p>\n<p>Part of it is not surprising. To me, the overall conclusions are familiar in general, but all of it is surprising because of the depth of the brutality. The extent of it is truly much greater than even I imagined it to be. And this goes to how difficult it is to report this kind of issue, and how words can often mask the horror of these techniques. Like the \u201cstress positions,\u201d it rolls easily off the tongue, but to be shackled standing up for a week, it\u2019s unthinkable \u2014 the physical effects, the trauma that something like that would create. It would not be considered one of the principle torture techniques, yet it is torture. That certainly continues to be a surprise and engenders a renewed sense of horror.<\/p>\n<p>Beyond that, the degree of the incompetence masquerading as pseudo-scientific interrogation is also staggering. The fact that these two [cited] psychologists had never interrogated anybody in their lives, had no expertise in the field whatsoever, had no Arabic language expertise, no expertise in the region, simply no background whatsoever, and yet they invented this program and sold it to the CIA for the staggering amount of $81 million over the course of the contract \u2014 and actually applied themselves some of these enhanced interrogation techniques \u2014 was a shock.<\/p>\n<p>As it was, the CIA personnel involved, many of them, had zero background in this, zero training in any of this, and yet they were the ones who were then administrating and executing the program. The lack of oversight on the part of the CIA, the lack of recordkeeping or accurate reporting not only to Congress but within the administration, demonstrates a program without core, without content other than simple brutality. This is what it appears to amount to, nothing beyond the application of brutality and cruelty to the prisoners in the hope that something will shake free \u2014 nothing more than that.<\/p>\n<p>Then, the fact that they misrepresented or did not fully report to the White House, to the president himself, to the Department of Justice, to the Secretary of State, and others in an attempt to circumvent or avoid congressional oversight is another truly shocking aspect of the report that represents a separate dimension that needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency.<\/p>\n<p><strong>GAZETTE:<\/strong> Some former CIA officials, members of the Bush-Cheney administration, and others say the report is deeply flawed because the Senate Intelligence Committee didn\u2019t interview relevant CIA leaders. And they overemphasized negative aspects of the program while understating the value of information obtained through the use of these techniques \u2014 intelligence they say has been vital to national security. Are those valid criticisms, and how credible is this report given what you know?<\/p>\n<p><strong>MORA:<\/strong> I\u2019m not quite sure how to assess that yet. Part of the reason that these people didn\u2019t speak to the committee was because the CIA would not make them available. There was a fear of prosecution or prosecutorial exposure given the fact that when the Senate investigation started, the Justice Department was itself starting a review of possible prosecution of some of the CIA activities. So that\u2019s what triggered \u2026 Republicans withdrawing from the investigation and the CIA not producing its individuals for questioning or dialogue with the committee staff.<\/p>\n<p>What the Democrats are saying is that, notwithstanding that they did not talk to or could not talk to the CIA officials, the committee relied on oral histories which are provided in prior oral testimony given by the key members of the interrogation committee. So, to the extent that that provided accurate testimony \u2014 and of course the CIA would know whether or not it was accurate and comprehensive \u2014 to the extent that it did, then the complaint that they were not talked to lacks real substance.<\/p>\n<p>Having said all of that, ordinarily one would have wanted to have had these individuals\u2019 respond to the allegations as part of the investigative file. That\u2019s customary. It\u2019s regrettable that was not obtained, and the problem with that is that it lends the report to this kind of criticism, it seems to have perhaps at least a smidgen of surface validity or potential validity.<\/p>\n<p><strong>GAZETTE:<\/strong> The CIA internally concluded decades ago that brutally coercive interrogation techniques like those described in the report too often produced unreliable information. Why then did the agency apparently resume these practices, and on such a broad scale?<\/p>\n<p><strong>MORA:<\/strong> That goes to the incompetence of the agency and the fact that they weren\u2019t really interested in a scientific approach to this. They were interested in applying brutality \u2026<\/p>\n<p><strong>GAZETTE:<\/strong> There still seems to be some debate, mostly political, over what constitutes torture and whether actions that were authorized by the president and\/or the Department of Justice can be deemed criminal. What\u2019s the law here; is this settled law?<\/p>\n<p><strong>MORA:<\/strong> No, it\u2019s not settled at all. I think one of the most important outcomes that any reasonable person can draw from the report is that the treatment of these detainees clearly constituted torture. The scope of the brutality is such that no reasonable person reading those kinds of techniques can have any doubt any longer whether or not this was torture. It was indisputably torture. The rectal hydrations, the rectal feedings, which were not medically required as the report reads, is nothing more than rape. The shackling to the walls for a week, the sleep deprivation for 180 hours, these are torture, and many more of these events were torture.<\/p>\n<p>Now, it is true that the Department of Justice [DOJ] gave them the green light to do so in what continues to be a shocking breach of professional ethics and legal professionalism. For all the heat that the CIA and the Defense Department have gotten, I think that we need to give much closer attention to the behavior and performance of the Justice Department in this period.<\/p>\n<p>What is clear is that from the president on down during the Bush administration, there was clear recognition that torture was a crime and that torture should be punished. There was never any deviation from that clear understanding, which only represents an articulation of what is black-letter law in the United States and everywhere else: Torture is a criminal act that will be prosecuted if committed. What happened was the Justice Department then redefined torture much more narrowly, allowing torture to take place, although under seeming legal cover. Going along with this is that even though Justice Department guidance and authorizations to the CIA were shocking, nonetheless they did provide some kinds of limits. One of the things I think people need to look at is the liability, or potential liability, of those who exceeded these very broad authorizations provided by the Department of Justice. It strikes me that if you exceeded the authorizations DOJ provided, then you are a candidate for prosecution.<\/p>\n<p><strong>GAZETTE:<\/strong> In her foreword, committee chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein doesn\u2019t make any recommendations to Congress or President Barack Obama. Where could \u2014 or should \u2014 things go from here?<\/p>\n<p><strong>MORA:<\/strong> My understanding is Feinstein and members of the committee are now considering remedial legislation across a range of areas. I haven\u2019t heard yet what they\u2019re thinking about. I would be surprised if it didn\u2019t contain perhaps more-explicit definitions of what constitutes torture and what is prohibited activity, but I\u2019m also virtually certain that it would contain legislation concerning effective oversight of the CIA.<\/p>\n<p>But I think we all need to digest the report. There\u2019s in a sense too much material, too much that is new, for us to immediately jump to what the next step is going to be.<\/p>\n<p>In broad measure, this is the start of the reform process. This is the necessary accounting that the American people needed to have in order to then truly base their opinion as to what we did and whether it was wise and whether it was legal and whether it was moral on a factual accounting. We have that now largely, and we can draw the proper conclusions. One of them would be, for example, no longer using the euphemisms to describe this, but calling things by the proper names, and in this case it would be torture. And then, given that we tortured, how are we to respond to that kind of behavior?<\/p>\n<p>This is an opportunity for the American people to reconsider what our basic rights are concerning the right to be free from cruelty and whether we\u2019re going to rededicate ourselves to a world and a country that is less cruel, not more cruel, and to determine our national direction on this critical aspect of our values.<\/p>\n<p><em>This interview was edited for length and clarity.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n<\/div>\n"}},"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":154722,"url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2014\/04\/the-quantum-of-cruelty\/","url_meta":{"origin":164398,"position":0},"title":"The quantum of cruelty","author":"harvardgazette","date":"April 16, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"A former general counsel for the U.S. Navy, among the earliest Pentagon critics of detainee abuse, offers firsthand insights into the findings of the still-secret Senate Intelligence Committee\u2019s report on CIA torture.","rel":"","context":"In "Nation & World"","block_context":{"text":"Nation & World","link":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/section\/nation-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/040414_mora_0380_605.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/040414_mora_0380_605.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/040414_mora_0380_605.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":354578,"url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2023\/02\/why-church-committee-alums-urged-new-house-panel-to-avoid-partisanship\/","url_meta":{"origin":164398,"position":1},"title":"Why Church Committee alums urged new House panel to avoid partisanship","author":"harvardgazette","date":"February 27, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Fritz Schwarz, former chief counsel of the 1975-76 U.S. Senate panel known as the Church Committee, discusses what it was like to undertake the largest, most consequential investigation of U.S. intelligence in American history.","rel":"","context":"In "Nation & World"","block_context":{"text":"Nation & World","link":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/section\/nation-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Members of the special Senate Committee created to investigate the CIA, FBI and other U.S. Intelligence gathering agencies in 1975.","src":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/AP2500.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/AP2500.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/AP2500.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/AP2500.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":180306,"url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2016\/04\/lessons-from-a-post-911-world\/","url_meta":{"origin":164398,"position":2},"title":"Lessons from a post-9\/11 world","author":"harvardgazette","date":"April 12, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Deborah Popowski is a Harvard Law School lecturer and human rights lawyer who has led efforts to hold psychologists accountable for their participation in torture during the war on terror.","rel":"","context":"In "Nation & World"","block_context":{"text":"Nation & World","link":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/section\/nation-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/022516_popowski_133_605.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/022516_popowski_133_605.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/022516_popowski_133_605.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":348143,"url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2022\/09\/no-jason-bourne-is-not-the-real-cia\/","url_meta":{"origin":164398,"position":3},"title":"No, Jason Bourne is not the real CIA","author":"harvardgazette","date":"September 19, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Former officials, scholars say nation\u2019s image comes from popular media, offer insights into actual mission, history as the CIA turns 75.","rel":"","context":"In "Nation & World"","block_context":{"text":"Nation & World","link":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/section\/nation-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Sue Gordon","src":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/091622_CIA@75__053.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/091622_CIA@75__053.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/091622_CIA@75__053.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/091622_CIA@75__053.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":356759,"url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2023\/04\/some-intelligence-leaks-are-better-than-others\/","url_meta":{"origin":164398,"position":4},"title":"Some intelligence leaks are better than others","author":"harvardgazette","date":"April 12, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Rep. Adam Schiff contrasts recent disclosure of U.S. documents, Russian invasion buildup in Kennedy School talk on foreign policy, future of democracy.","rel":"","context":"In "Nation & World"","block_context":{"text":"Nation & World","link":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/section\/nation-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Adam Schiff.","src":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/4.11.23-Adam-Schiff_070.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/4.11.23-Adam-Schiff_070.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/4.11.23-Adam-Schiff_070.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/4.11.23-Adam-Schiff_070.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":360801,"url":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2023\/06\/chinese-spies-in-cuba-problem-runs-deeper-than-that\/","url_meta":{"origin":164398,"position":5},"title":"Chinese spies in Cuba? The problem runs deeper than that.","author":"gazettebeckycoleman","date":"June 16, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"As Blinken visits Beijing, cyber infiltration of U.S. is a far more serious threat, 25-year CIA officer Paul Kolbe says.","rel":"","context":"In "Nation & World"","block_context":{"text":"Nation & World","link":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/section\/nation-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Havana, Cuba.","src":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/20230616_china_cuba_AP20106849445753.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/20230616_china_cuba_AP20106849445753.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/20230616_china_cuba_AP20106849445753.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/20230616_china_cuba_AP20106849445753.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/105622744"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164398"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":269212,"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164398\/revisions\/269212"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164398"},{"taxonomy":"format","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/gazette-formats?post=164398"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=164398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}