Sorry, Dick Cheney: Torture doesn't work

A new report confirms what we've suspected all along: The CIA's interrogation techniques did not result in valuable intelligence

Protestors
(Image credit: (Astrid Riecken/Getty Images))

I've written a couple posts now predicting that a Senate report on the CIA's interrogation practices during the Bush years would show that the CIA's foray into torture just didn't work. Also, that the CIA lied about the effectiveness of waterboarding and other controversial techniques. Now we have a test of that prediction — not the Intelligence Committee report itself, which is still under wraps, but a bombshell in the Washington Post that quotes people with firsthand knowledge of the report. Lo and behold:

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.

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Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.