Latest in SSCI Report
The CIA should be held accountable for its mistakes, but it’s important to stick to the facts when doing so.
As Benjamin Wittes and I have noted, the last few weeks of the Obama administration and the first months of the Trump administration generated some activity surrounding the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on interrogation, with counsel for Guantanamo detainees filing motions requesting that the SSCI report be preserved in at least four cases.
With the end of the Obama administration and the beginning of the Trump administration, activity has picked up in Guantanamo litigation regarding the SSCI "torture report." Several weeks ago, I flagged that in the Nashiri habeas case in the U.S.
As Benjamin Wittes and I noted a few weeks ago, these past few weeks have produced some interesting litigation activity regarding the Senate Intelligence Committee’s interrogation report. In the last days of the Obama administration and the first few days of the Trump administration, things appear to have picked up even more.
The commission is called to order with four defendants present (Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, and Mustafa al Hawsawi) and one conspicuously absent (Walid bin Attash.) Judge Pohl begins the session by swearing in an unnamed Army Major to confirm that bin Attash voluntarily waived his right to be present.
After a brief moment of confusion related to Appellate Exhibit (AE) 408 - or is it 408A? – everyone gets on the same page and realizes that it’s just bin Attash’s waiver form for today, as opposed to the one from yesterday’s session.
When the Senate Intelligence Committee initially released its Study on the CIA’s Enhanced Interrogation Program in December 2014, the CIA quietly released a Note to the Reader along with its Fact Sheet, statement from Director John Brennan, and June 2013 Response to a draft of the SSCI Study.
Who won the torture debate -- the CIA or Senate Intelligence Committee Report? Were waterboarding, rectal hydration, stress positions, and other techniques used against detainees effective? Legal? Ethical? In a forthcoming special issue of the journal Intelligence and National Security, a range of academics and one former CIA lawyer weigh in.