Critics of CIA Director John Brennan say he has been too quick to defend the agency in the face of the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee's damning report, according to
Politico.
A
CIA statement characterized the report as misleading and inaccurate. The agency acknowledged that serious mistakes had been made, but insisted that torture "produced valuable and unique intelligence" in the battle against al-Qaida terrorists.
Brennan's position that torture "did produce intelligence that helped thwart attack plans, capture terrorists, and save lives" drew the ire of agency critics. They recalled that during his February 2013 confirmation hearings to be CIA director, Brennan appeared to have been skeptical about the value of torture.
Brennan told the committee: "I don't know what the facts are or what the truth is. So I really need to look at that carefully and see what CIA's response is,"
The New York Times reported at the time.
The Washington Post reported that Brennan in a 2007 interview said he thought the program had been valuable and effective. But at the 2013 hearing he said, "I must tell you that reading this report from the committee raises serious questions about the information that I was given at the time."
His detractors are angered that Brennan has now reverted to the view that torture served a necessary purpose. "The intelligence gained from the program," he said "was critical to our understanding of al-Qaida and continues to inform our counterterrorism efforts to this day."
"John Brennan has no business running the CIA," said Chris Anders of the ACLU's Washington office. "It's hard to see how Brennan's going to be up to the task of imposing reforms on what seem to be his buddies at the CIA," Politico reported.
No one is asserting that Brennan himself is culpable in any wrongdoing while he was deputy executive CIA director in 2002 and 2003. He later worked as President Barack Obama's counterterrorism adviser prior to returning to lead the agency.
Democrats who voted to confirm Brennan feel hoodwinked, Politico reported.
Many are angered that Brennan did not cooperate in facilitating the release of the report. CIA personnel even stealthily
examined Senate committee computers for material related to the draft report. Brennan wrote a formal apology to senators Mark Udall of Colorado and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico in response to their demands that he resign over the incident.
"I think John Brennan is a conflicted character in this saga," says Raha Wala of
Human Rights First, which supported the release of the report. "On the one hand, he clearly does seem to agree that serious mistakes were made in this program and fundamentally he agrees with the president that we should not resort to so-called enhanced interrogation."
"On the other hand," Wala told Politico, "he no doubt has a deeply instinctive need to defend the CIA at all costs."
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