Ex-CIA Official: Torture Ban a ‘Great Leap Forward’

[babylonsister]

http://washingtonindependent.com/26918/obama-torture

Ex-CIA Official: Torture Ban a ‘Great Leap Forward’

Anti-Torture Advocates Hail Obama's Promise to Close Gitmo, End Enhanced Interrogation
By Spencer Ackerman 1/22/09 5:16 PM

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin



President Barack Obama took a major step toward undoing the interrogation and detention policies of the Bush administration on Thursday, issuing four executive orders that lay out an unequivocal path to closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, constructing a new legal and policy architecture for terrorism detainees, and ending the CIA’s so-called “enhanced interrogation” regime.

Both civil libertarians and ex-CIA officials involved in interrogations and detentions policies hailed the changes.

“It’s a great leap forward in terms of respect for human rights,” said John Kiriakou, the retired CIA official who supervised the early interrogation of Al Qaeda detainee Abu Zubaydah in 2002. “From the very beginning, the CIA should not have been in the business of enhanced interrogation techniques and detentions.” CIA interrogators waterboarded Abu Zubaydah, but not while Kiriakou supervised the interrogation.

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Drumheller hoped that the administration would engage in some sort of reckoning with the notion, put forward without evidence by senior Bush officials for seven years, that the Bush administration’s interrogation program actually provided valuable intelligence in the struggle against Al Qaeda. “What really did come out?” Drumheller asked. “There should be an honest appraisal of {the program} not just the first few months, but all these years. It would give an idea why {the use of torture} probably isn’t a good idea.”

Kiriakou, who had more hands-on experience with the interrogation regime than nearly anyone in the intelligence community, was satisfied simply to see the program end. “It’s finally time that regulations fell in line with reality,” he said.