CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Sen. Jay Rockefeller says lessons learned from a report delving into the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program must be central to all future activities.
Rockefeller made his comments Tuesday on the Senate floor after the Senate Intelligence Committee released its long-awaited report. Rockefeller once chaired the committee and called for a congressional investigation into the program, created in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The 6,800-page report details torture techniques the agency’s field operatives used to coerce information from suspected terrorists and how it failed to provide accurate information about the program to Congress and the public.
The techniques, which included waterboarding — in which water is poured over a cloth covering the face of a bound captive — and other forms of torture, were not successful, the study found.
“It was physically very severe, the program,” Rockefeller said on the Senate floor. “Far more so than any of us outside the CIA ever knew. Although waterboarding always received the most attention, there were others I think were much worse.”
According to the report: “At least five detainees were subjected to ‘rectal rehydration’ or rectal feeding without documented medical necessity. The CIA placed detainees in ice water ‘baths…