Senate Torture Report Should Make Any American Sick to Their Stomach

Okay. The report's out, and even members of the CIA found some things they were doing disturbing. Read about it here and here.

The blowback is going to be interesting to behold. Washington is going to be a wild spin zone for a few days.

Here's a taste:

At times, senior CIA operatives voiced deep misgivings. In early 2003, the CIA officer in charge of the interrogation program described it as a “train [wreck] waiting to happen” and that “I intend to get the hell off the train before it happens.” The officer, identified by former colleagues as Charlie Wise, subsequently retired and died in 2003. He had been picked for the job despite being reprimanded for his role in other troubled interrogation efforts in the 1980s in Beirut, former officials said.

The agency’s records of the program were so riddled with errors, according to the report, that the CIA often offered conflicting counts of how many prisoners it had.

In 2007, then-CIA Director Hayden testified in a closed-door session with the Senate panel that “in the history of the program, we’ve had 97 detainees.” In reality, the number was 119, according to the report, including 39 who had been subjected to harsh interrogation methods.

Two years later, when Hayden was preparing to deliver an early intelligence briefing for senior aides to newly elected President Obama, a subordinate noted that the actual count was significantly higher. Hayden “instructed me to keep the detainee number at 98,” the employee wrote to himself in an e-mail. “Pick whatever date I needed to make that happen but the number is 98.”

Hayden comes under particularly pointed scrutiny in the report, which includes a 38-page table comparing his statements to often conflicting agency documents. The section is listed as an “example of inaccurate CIA testimony.”

Righteous. A real patriot.

Former CIA Director Michael Hayden. A real prince.
We'll be hearing from him, no doubt.

Hayden. I remember back in the day, listening to him. Seemed like a born liar. Guess I was right.