New report by the Senate Intelligence Committee finds that CIA misled the government about the benefits of enhanced interrogation techniques, or what is commonly known as torture.

Courtesy of the Washington Post:  

A report by the Senate Intelligence Committee concludes that the CIA misled the government and the public about aspects of its brutal interrogation program for years — concealing details about the severity of its methods, overstating the significance of plots and prisoners, and taking credit for critical pieces of intelligence that detainees had in fact surrendered before they were subjected to harsh techniques. 

The report, built around detailed chronologies of dozens of CIA detainees, documents a long-standing pattern of unsubstantiated claims as agency officials sought permission to use — and later tried to defend — excruciating interrogation methods that yielded little, if any, significant intelligence, according to U.S. officials who have reviewed the document. 

“The CIA described [its program] repeatedly both to the Department of Justice and eventually to Congress as getting unique, otherwise unobtainable intelligence that helped disrupt terrorist plots and save thousands of lives,” said one U.S. official briefed on the report. “Was that actually true? The answer is no.” 

Current and former U.S. officials who described the report spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue and because the document remains classified. The 6,300-page report includes what officials described as damning new disclosures about a sprawling network of secret detention facilities, or “black sites,” that was dismantled by President Obama in 2009.

Classified files reviewed by committee investigators reveal internal divisions over the interrogation program, officials said, including one case in which CIA employees left the agency’s secret prison in Thailand after becoming disturbed by the brutal measures being employed there. The report also cites cases in which officials at CIA headquarters demanded the continued use of harsh interrogation techniques even after analysts were convinced that prisoners had no more information to give.

Yeah someone tell me again how the Obama administration is the most criminal administration in history, or how President Obama is destroying the reputation of this country.

These techniques were implemented, supported, and defended by George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz.

And every time anybody tried to call them out on using torture they were attacked, undermined, and essentially accused of giving comfort to the terrorists.

Fuck the Bush administration.

Fuck the Republicans who provided them cover.

And fuck anybody who even suggests that we vote another Republican President into office.