ID :
351475
Wed, 12/17/2014 - 07:44
Auther :

‘CIA report shocking, but not much surprising’

TEHRAN, Dec. 17 (MNA) – In an interview to Mehr News, the deputy program director of Human Rights Watch Tom Porteous gives his opinion on the significance of the CIA torture report as well as its consequences. The CIA torture report which was released by a powerful Senate panel on Dec. 9 harshly criticized the so-called ‘enhanced interrogation techniques' conducted in the wake of Sep. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks under the presidency of George W. Bush. The report charges that the Central Intelligence Agency had implemented practices that completely violate human rights and furthermore, did not even yield to the intelligence that eventually led to the raid on Osama Bin Laden’s compound. The report also makes the claim that the White House, Congress, and the public have been misinformed on the security and effectiveness of the interrogation methods used by the CIA on the detainees. In an interview to Mehr News, the deputy program director of Human Rights Watch Tom Porteous shared his opinion on the significance of the CIA torture report as well as its consequences. There has been much opposition against the release of the torture report; what would be the impact of the release? The impact of the release is to confirm reports such as those by Human Rights Watch over the past decade or so of the existence of the CIA torture program and the complicity of certain US allies in this program. One of the most important aspects of the report is that it exposes the inadequacy of the CIA’s defence that it was relying in good faith on a ruling of the Bush administration’s Office of Legal Counsel that the torture was 'legal.' The report makes absolutely clear that senior CIA officials knew from the start that they were torturing suspects and went looking for legal protection from their allies in the government. When the Justice Department’s criminal division refused to rule out prosecution, the CIA went to pro-torture officials in the White House and the Office of Legal Counsel to secure the notorious 'torture memos' and a ruling that the so called 'enhanced interrogation techniques' were not torture. Worse still, the CIA lied to the lawyers who drew up the torture memos making it even more difficult to sustain the defense that the CIA was relying on the legal advice in good faith. While Republicans were mainly against the release of the report, some Democrats including John Kerry opposed its timing. What’s your take on that? One of the arguments was that releasing the report would put American lives at risk and would damage US relations with some countries whose complicity in the torture program is made clear in the report. In fact there has been no retaliatory violence against Americans as a result of the report’s release, at least not so far, and while some of the revelations about complicity by US allies have been embarrassing, it’s hard to see how they can have done permanent damage. The main reason for this is that thanks to reports by investigative journalists and human rights organisations like Human Rights Watch the key elements of the report, as well as a lot of the details are already well known so while the report is a shocking read, none of it is very surprising and not much is even very new. According to international human rights law, what should be the reaction to these torture methods and the officials who carried them out? The primary international treaty against torture, the Convention against Torture, which the United States ratified 20 years ago, not only bans torture, without exception, as well as other inhumane treatment, but also requires that torturers be prosecuted. While Obama ordered an end to torture on his second day in office, he has refused to investigate the Bush era torture, let alone prosecute those responsible. If Obama permits this impunity for so serious a crime as torture, he encourages future US presidents to regard torture as a policy option when the next serious security threat arises. And he makes it far more difficult for the United States to use its influence around the world to seek prosecution of torturers in other countries. It is said that the tortures were ‘legal’ and approved by the Department of Justice. But the question is, were they ‘constitutional’ as well? The torture program was only legal in the sense that they were authorized by the notorious torture memos of the Bush administration’s Office of Legal Counsel. But those memos deliberately sought to evade clear prohibitions of torture under US and international law and were therefore themselves illegal. The report is released amid anger and protests against police racism across the country. Is the release aimed at shifting angers toward Republicans over the torture? Do you see any political points in it? There’s no connection between the release of the report and the protests. The Senate Intelligence Committee finalized the report two years ago and voted to release the 500 page executive summary last April. The delay in the release has been due to highly divisive and contentious negotiations within and between different branches of the government and it’s impossible that the timing of the release now has anything to do with the current protests against police racism and brutality. In any case the report has not generated much anger because its contents are largely already known and the US public, whether in favour or opposed to the Bush torture program, has already more or less made up its mind. The US public’s attention and pressure with regard to next steps now that the report has come out should not be on the Republicans, but on Obama. It is his responsibility under international law to investigate and prosecute those who carried out, ordered and authorized torture. He must do so if the US is to put this ugly chapter behind it. Tom Porteous is the deputy program director at Human Rights Watch and is based in Washington DC. He joined Human Rights Watch in 2006 as the London director in charge of communications and advocacy in the United Kingdom. Porteous has a background in journalism, diplomacy and UN peacekeeping. He worked in UN peacekeeping operations in Somalia and Liberia. He also served as conflict management adviser for Africa in the UK's Foreign Office from 2001 to 2003. (By Marjohn Sheikhi)

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