WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Virginia Sloan, president of The Constitution Project (TCP), offered the following comment on the adoption by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence of a report detailing the Central Intelligence Agency's detention and interrogation program as a part of U.S. counterterrorism efforts following the attacks of September 11, 2001:
"We commend the Committee members for adopting this critical report as an important first step in informing the American people about this program. Committee Chair Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) in particular has been steadfast in her efforts to debunk those who claim the use of harsh interrogation techniques by the CIA yielded actionable intelligence. However, because this report has not yet been made public, more than a decade after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Americans still do not have an official accounting of all that our government did in our name.
"To help fill this void, The Constitution Project convened an independent, bipartisan, blue-ribbon Task Force on Detainee Treatment-a group of distinguished Americans from across the political and professional spectrums-to examine the issues, and we plan to issue our report early next year. Although the Task Force has developed a comprehensive record of detainee treatment spanning two decades, three administrations and multiple geographic theaters, our members did not have access to the classified documents that the Senate staff did. It is, therefore, imperative that the committee declassify this new report to the fullest extent possible and make it available to the American people."
Based on the three-year long review of millions of pages of classified documents by the majority staff, Senator Feinstein called the roughly 6,000-page report "the most definitive review of this CIA program to be conducted." The committee adopted the report at a closed-door meeting earlier today, and indicated it would address the decision on declassification and release of the report at a future meeting.
TCP's Task Force on Detainee Treatment is directed by a respected former New York Times reporter, Neil A. Lewis. The staff has interviewed hundreds of people, including former detainees, military and intelligence officers, interrogators and policymakers. Based on this investigation, the Task Force has developed a compelling narrative of what happened, what we still do not know, what we as a nation must learn from our past actions and what we must do to better address the future treatment of suspected terrorists. The Task Force expects to issue its final report early in 2013.
