Only CIA Agent Jailed for Torture Program Is Whistleblower Who Confirmed It Existed

[ChrryBlstr]

Former operative John Kiriakou, currently in prison, was charged with a crime after helping expose widespread abuses conducted by agency

There is only one U.S. government employee who has gone to jail in connection with the widespread torture program by the CIA documented in the executive summary (pdf) of the Senate report that was partially released Tuesday: the man who helped expose it six years ago.

John Kiriakou, who worked for the CIA between 1990 and 2004, stepped forward in 2007 and confirmed to press outlets some of the first details about the agency's widespread use of torture.

Among Kiriakou's revelations was an account to ABC News of the repeated water-boardings of Abu Zubaydah?a man currently imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay without charges whose 12 years of torture and abuse at the hands of the U.S. were further exposed in the Senate report.

In 2013, Kiriakou?a father of five?was prosecuted by the Obama administration under the Espionage Act for allegedly revealing classified information to a reporter. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison, which he is still serving. His incarceration came after the Obama administration refused to prosecute any of the higher-up government officials who designed, authorized, or otherwise took part in implementation of the torture program.

Kiriakou is widely considered a victim of the Obama administration's war on whistleblowers, in which the president's administration has charged more people under the Espionage Act than all previous administrations combined.

The Senate report released Tuesday reveals that, as the Obama administration locked up Kiriakou, the CIA was actively spreading lies and misinformation about the agency's vast torture program, including deliberate leaks and false narratives to the media.

Jesselyn Radack, the lawyer who represented Kiriakou, wrote Tuesday in Salon, "The newly released Executive Summary of Senate Intelligence Committee?s Torture Report lays bare that the CIA makes propaganda its business, and the propagandists and perpetrators of torture are enjoying their freedom. Meanwhile, the Obama administration has made truth-telling a crime, and truth-tellers are in jail."

Figures. Peace!

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/12/10/only-cia-agent-jailed-torture-program-whistleblower-who-confirmed-its-existence

 

[ssd]

Pres Obama's CIA Director:

The CIA director took issue with the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) for not interviewing CIA officers during its investigation on the agency?s enhanced interrogation tactics (EITs), indicating that as a result a partisan investigation was unveiled.
?Our hope was that it would offer an impartial and authoritative assessment of the program, help us learn from our mistakes, and inform how we conduct sensitive activities in the future,? said John Brennan, the CIA chief. ?Unfortunately, the Committee could not agree on a bipartisan way forward, and no CIA personnel were interviewed by the Committee.?
Brennan held a press conference in response to the Senate panel publicly releasing a shorter-version of its 6,700-plus page study on CIA?s former detention and interrogation tactics.
In it, the Committee acknowledged that it did not interview CIA officials in the context of its study.
?This was unusual. In the vast majority of cases, SSCI?s congressional reports have been the result of collaborative, bipartisan investigations. Over the course of my career, I have seen the value of the Committee?s reviews,? the CIA director, appointed by President Obama, explained. ?Even on politically sensitive matters such as the SSCI?s investigation into the intelligence failures regarding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the Committee succeeded in producing a report that was supported unanimously.?
The CIA director said the Committee investigation is "flawed."
?Although we view the process undertaken by the Committee when investigating the program as flawed, many aspects of their conclusions are sound and consistent with our own prior findings,? noted Brennan. ?Over the years, internal Agency reviews?including numerous investigations by our Office of Inspector General?found fault in CIA?s running of the program.?
?To address the concerns identified, the CIA has implemented a number of reforms in an effort to make sure those mistakes never happen again,? he added.
Brennan acknowledged that the CIA was unprepared when the program was implemented, but added that the agency has learned from its mistakes.
He also indicated that the interrogation tactics contributed to the killing of Osama bin Laden.
?It is our considered view that the detainees who were subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques provided information that was useful and was used in the ultimate operation to go against Bin Laden," he said.
However, the CIA director warned, ?There was useful intelligence, very useful, valuable intelligence that was obtained from individuals who had been at some point subjected to EITs. Whether that could?ve been obtained without the use of those EIT?s it?s something, again, that is unknowable.?
Some Republicans, including Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), the ranking-member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, have come out against releasing the report.
The report criticizes some of the CIA officers involved in the interrogation practices, which Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the chairwoman of the Senate panel, said amounted to ?torture? in the report.
?Numerous CIA officers had serious documented personal and professional problems?including histories of violence and records of abusive treatment of others?that should have called into question their suitability to participate in the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program, their employment with the CIA,and their continued access to classified information,? reported the Committee. ?In nearly all cases, these problems were known to the CIA prior to the assignment of these officers to detention and interrogation positions.?

 

[ssd]

More:

CIA Director John Brennan said Tuesday that ?The intelligence gained from the [enhanced interrogation] program was critical to our understanding of Al Qaeda and continues to inform our counterterrorism efforts to this day,? reported Breitbart?s Edwin Mora. Although he was appointed by President Obama, who supported the report?s release, the CIA director met the report with total condemnation.
Breitbart?s Dr. Sebastian Gorka, who has trained U.S. special forces operators on how to interview jihadist radicals, said Wednesday that the report?s release was a partisan act that may have turned over valuable information to America?s enemies. ?We can rest assured that ISIS, Al Qaeda, and even Tehran and Russia will be poring over the 500-plus pages too,? said Dr. Gorka, who stressed that ?Preventing another 9/11 is not a partisan issue.?
Former CIA director Michael Hayden wrote an op-ed in Wednesday?s Wall Street Journal, describing the enhanced interrogation measures as a ?Home Depot-like storage of inofrmation on Al Qaeda on which we relied? We are still relying on it today.? Hayden added that the report was a ?one-sided study? and a ?partisan? attack.
Another former CIA Director, James Woolsey, described the Democrat-released CIA report as a ?great disservice? to America.
Greg West, a former 21 year US Army Special Forces Intelligence Sergeant who now runs the ISIS Study Group, told Breitbart News regarding the CIA torture report: ?Why release the details of a report that your administration specifically states will put lives in jeopardy? Not only American lives, but also the lives of those that have worked with the US intelligence community--and not only the CIA's sources and other connections??
Sgt. West explained, ?Having spent 21 years in US Army Special Forces I can assure that intelligence regardless of who gathers it is not always right. It must be corroborated if at all possible with other sources and outside a particular source pool if possible.?
He concluded, ?Bottom line, there was no rational explanation for releasing a report you know increases the danger to your citizens as well as the citizens of foreign countries. You also alienate other intelligence agencies that cooperated with the United States.?
Retired Army Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, who served in special operations and intelligence units, told Newsmax TV that the report?s release was a treasonous act and political ?pornography? for the purpose of satisfying those critical of America. ?The real torture? severing of arms and legs and heads? harm[ing] a child. That?s torture,? said Shaffer.

 

[Duff Miver]

Fifth, Eighth, and/or Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution".[7]
Restricting acts of torture to the following list: "(1) the intention
Restricting the definition of "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" to "the cruel, unusual and inhumane treatment or punishment prohibited by the al infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering; (2) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality; (3) the threat of imminent death; or (4) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality."[
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Torture in all forms is banned by the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which the United States participated in drafting. The United States is a party to the following conventions (international treaties) that prohibit torture: the American Convention on Human Rights (signed 1977) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (signed 1977; ratified 1992).

_________________

The United States is a party to the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which originated in the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1984, and signed by President Ronald Reagan on April 18, 1988. Ratification by the Senate took place on October 27, 1990.

________

In late 2006, the military issued updated field manuals on intelligence collection (FM 2-22.3. Human Intelligence Collector Operations, September 2006) and counterinsurgency (FM 3-24. Counterinsurgency, December 2006). Both manuals reiterated that "no person in the custody or under the control of DOD, regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, in accordance with and as defined in U.S. law."[15] Specific techniques prohibited in the intelligence collection manual include:

Forcing the detainee to be naked, perform sexual acts, or pose in a sexual manner;
Hooding, that is, placing hoods or sacks over the head of a detainee; using duct tape over the eyes;
Applying beatings, electric shock, burns, or other forms of physical pain;
Waterboarding;
Using military working dogs;
Inducing hypothermia or heat injury;
Conducting mock executions;
Depriving the detainee of necessary food, water, or medical care.[16]

Torture is not permissible just because ssd, skulnutz,rock and all the other pro-torture a-holes want to. They should go join up with the Taliban where they belong.

Their excuse for torture is "Hey, it gets results".
Bank robbery gets money too.
And Michael Brown got free cigars.

Getting what you want makes anything okey-dokey.

 

[Jaxx]

And Michael Brown got free cigars.

Getting what you want makes anything okey-dokey.

:SIB

 

[Duff Miver]

:SIB

No response from the pro-torture, law-abiding crowd. What else could you expect from those jerk-offs?

A fair trial in court, or vigilantism? They can't decide.

:0062