Foreign Policy Blogs

Delayed Again: CIA Interrogation Report

The re-release of a May 2004 internal CIA report on the agency’s secret detention and interrogation program was again delayed this afternoon, CNN reports.

The document has been requested by the ACLU as part of its ongoing Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.  It is a report regarding then CIA inspector general John L. Helgerson’s May 2004 review of the agency’s program.

A version of the report was released by the Bush administration in 2008, but was so heavily censored that its re-release has been requested.  It is widely believed that the released document will contain a critical analysis of the effectiveness of ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’.

Considering former Vice President Dick Cheney’s statements on CBS’s ‘Face the Nation’ that these practices ‘saved thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of lives’ many hope to use the analysis as proof – from sources inside the CIA itself – that the tactics used were both illegal and ineffective.

Time will tell.

 

Author

Lisa Gambone

Lisa Gambone is a NY attorney who has provided pro bono work for Human Rights Watch, the ICTR Prosecution and Lawyers Without Borders, first while practicing at a large law firm in London, now independently. She has also spent time at the Caprivi high treason trials in Namibia and at human rights organizations in Belfast, London and New York. She has helped edit and provided research for several publications, including case books on the law of the ad hoc tribunals and a critique of the Iraqi Anfal Trial. She holds a JD specializing in International Law from Columbia University, an MA in International Economics and European Studies from Johns Hopkins SAIS, and a BA in International Relations - Security & Diplomacy from Brown University. Here, she covers war crimes and international justice.