For Immediate Release: September 15, 2011
Contact: Samantha Friedman, office: (202) 265-3000 or
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Faith Leaders Respond to Soufan Book
WASHINGTON, D.C. – This week, former FBI interrogator Ali H. Soufan’s new book was released describing his experiences as a special agent working on U.S. counter-terrorism efforts. In The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against al-Qaeda, Soufan is persuasive in his argument that brutal interrogation techniques don’t work. In response to the book, Rev. Richard Killmer, Executive Director of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, released the following statement:
"We agree with Ali Soufan that torture and other forms of brutal interrogation techniques are ineffective. We make a mistake, however, if we only discuss whether torture is effective. More importantly, torture is wrong. It is against American values. We appreciate Mr. Soufan so persuasively showing that torture is ineffective – but Americans should not make the decision about whether or not to use torture based only on questions of effectiveness. Instead, they should look to their values and look to their faiths. The religions of the world agree that torture is wrong.
"Additionally, we were surprised to see the kinds of redactions the CIA made to Mr. Soufan’s book, including redacting the pronouns “I” and “me” from one part of the book and also redacting information that was already provided to the public in former CIA Director George Tenet’s 2007 book, At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA. While there may have been legitimate reasons for redacting information that has already been made public, this level of secrecy again points to the need for a non-partisan, independent Commission of Inquiry to discover all of the facts about the United States government’s past use of torture, and to recommend safeguards for ensuring that torture never happens again. Such a commission would have the capacity to deal with classified information securely without impeding the public’s ability to understand the policies that were carried out by the U.S. government."
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