The CIA's interrogation program was "invaluable" in leading to the capture of senior al Qaida operatives – and the takedown of terror leader Osama bin Laden, former top agency officials assert.
In an impassioned rebuttal of a Senate report's condemnation of the program for
The Wall Street Journal, former CIA directors George Tenet, Porter Goss and Michael Hayden, and ex-deputy directors John McLaughlin, Albert Calland and Stephen Kappes argue the report missed an "opportunity to deliver a serious and balanced study of an important public policy question."
"The country and the CIA would have benefited from a more balanced study of these programs and a corresponding set of recommendations," the officials write. "The committee’s report is not that study. It offers not a single recommendation."
The officials contend the Democratic-led committee report got it flat-out wrong about the program's effectiveness.
"The program was invaluable in three critical ways," they write. "It led to the capture of senior al Qaida operatives… It led to the disruption of terrorist plots and prevented mass casualty attacks… It added enormously to what we knew about al Qaida as an organization and therefore informed our approaches on how best to attack, thwart and degrade it."
The officials believe Abu Zubaydah, a senior al Qaeda operative, and 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Muhammed "would not have talked absent the interrogation program."
And, they write, it was their information that led to the capture of post-9/11 plotter Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, and Riduan Isamuddin, "the perpetrator of the 2002 Bali bombing in Indonesia" that killed 200 people.
The committee report also was wrong about the program failing to help in the takedown of bin Laden.
"There is no doubt that information provided by the totality of detainees in CIA custody, those who were subjected to interrogation and those who were not, was essential to bringing bin Laden to justice," they write.
"The CIA never would have focused on the individual who turned out to be bin Laden’s personal courier without the detention and interrogation program."
The officials also blasted the report’s conclusion that the CIA misled the Justice Department, the White House, Congress, and the American people.
"Much of the report’s reasoning for this claim rests on its argument that the interrogation program should not have been called effective, an argument that does not stand up to the facts," they write.
"When oversight works well, it is balanced, constructively critical and discreet — and offers sound recommendations," the officials write. "The Senate Intelligence Committee’s report is disrespectful of that standard."
The officials say it's "fair to ask" if the program was "the right policy, but the
committee never takes on this toughest of questions."
"Faced with post-9/11 circumstances, CIA officers knew that many would later question their decisions — as we now see — but they also believed that they would be morally culpable for the deaths of fellow citizens if they failed to gain information that could stop the next attacks," they write.
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