Learn More

Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee released a joint statement on April 27, 2012 regarding the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's comprehensive review of the CIA's former detention and interrogation program. The final report is expected to exceed 5,000 pages and include details on the interrogation techniques used, the conditions under which detainees were held, and the existence, or lack there of, of any intelligence gained from the program.

The joint statement refutes some of the recent claims from former CIA officials that the use of enhanced interrogation techniques yielded information that led to the capture of bin Laden, stating that their forthcoming report provides abundant evidence to the contrary. 

A broad overview of this evidence is outlined in the joint statement and includes the following points of fact:

• The CIA did not first learn about the existence of bin Laden's courier from CIA detainees subjected to coercive interrogation techniques
• Information for the operation to capture bin Laden was obtained from a wide variety of intelligence resources
• The CIA detainee who did provide significant information about the courier did so prior to being subjected to coercive interrogation techniques
• The detainees who were water-boarded provided no new information about the courier and either downplayed his role or denied knowing him at all
• Detainees who were believed to have information on bin Laden's location provided none of this information, even after significant use of the CIA's coercive interrogation techniques

Read the entire joint statement here.

"Prisoners," by Hendrick Hertzberg, The New Yorker, April 18, 2011.

"'Rebranding' US detention of prisoners in Afghanistan," by Paul Wood, BBC News, November 15, 2010.

"'Because It Is Wrong: A Meditation On Torture'," National Public Radio, September 16, 2010.

"Military Denies Having a Secret Afghan Torture Jail," by Spencer Ackerman, Wired.com, August 24, 2010.

• "Consign Bush's 'torture memos' to history" - OpEd in the Los Angeles Times by retired Air Force Col. Morris Davis, former chief prosecutor for the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay.
• "Indefinite detention: Instrument of tyranny," by Allen S. Keller and Yang-Yang Zhou,  McClatchy-Tribune, January 13, 2012.
• "Accountability for Torture (in Britain)," The New York Times, November 16, 2010.
• "Damn Wrong," The Washington Post, November 16, 2010.
• "Torture Is a Crime, Not a Secret," The New York Times, September 8, 2010.
• "The Torture Lawyers," The New York Times, February 24, 2010.

"Torture on Trial" is a Link TV original production that investigates the history of interrogations in the "War on Terrorism", and the growing movement calling for accountability for those who authorized and participated in torture. Featured guests include Jane Mayer, staff writer with The New Yorker, Mark Danner, author of "Torture and Truth", George Hunsinger Founder of NRCAT and others.

"EXPERIMENTS IN TORTURE: Evidence of Human Subject Research and Experimentation in the "Enhanced" Interrogation Program" - A white paper by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), released June 2010.

"PEW RESEARCH CENTER’S FORUM ON RELIGION AND PUBLIC LIFE: Survey on People of Faith and Torture" April 30, 2009.

"World Publics Reject Torture" World Public Opinion, 06/24/09. 

"SURVEY OF PENNSYLVANIANS ON THE USE OF TORTURE" by Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion, March 11, 2008.

"Arrest Story" by NRCAT member Jean Athey, January, 2008.

"Law and executive disorder: President gives green light to secret detention program" by Amnesty International, 8/17/07.

"No Blood, No Foul: Soldiers' Accounts of Detainee Abuse in Iraq" by Human Rights Watch, July 2006.

"The Use of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhumane, or Degrading Treatment as Interrogation Devices" by Mark Costanzo, Ellen Gerrity, and M. Brinton Lykes, a policy statement endorsed by the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues Council, 6/21/06.