Senate Report Reveals That the CIA Torture Program Was Just As Bad As Feared

Photo: IKONOS/Space Imaging Middle East/Reuters/Corbis

The newlyreleased 500-plus-page executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee's torture report delivers a scathing critique of the CIA's post-9/11 interrogation programs, revealing previously unknown abuses, deceptions of the media, and attempts to avoid Congressional oversight.


Among the horrifying abuses detailed in the Senate report: Waterboarding, a torture mechanism that brings the subject to the verge of drowning, was far more popular than the CIA had let on; "rectal feedings" and "rectal hydrations" were used to strip detainees of any measures of autonomy; and a particularly damning segment of the report notes that the CIA did not punish an agent who killed a detainee in the course of interrogations. The summary is based on millions of documents surveyed over five years, and is just a fraction of the length of the full, still-classified, 6,000-page report.
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