Senate Panel Slams Cheney Torture Program

June 3, 2007 (LPAC)--The Senate Intelligence Committee, in a report released last week, says that the purported value of the Cheney's secret program to detain and interrogate terrorist suspects (they call it a "CIA" program), "should be weighed against both the complications it causes to any ultimate prosecution of these terrorists, and the damage the program does to the image of the United States abroad."

Though the word "torture" is never mentioned, the report is clearly a rejection of the tortures that the Cheney Bush Administration has argued are necessary in the so-called war on terror. The comments were included in a report to accompany the committee's passage of the annual intelligence authorization bill and, according to Salon.com , were added to the report by a bipartisan voice vote. "While the language in the provision is a bit stronger than I would have preferred," said Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.), the ranking Republican on the committee, in a statement to Salon, "I am in agreement with the broad concerns it lays out."

The report also complains that the administration's decision to keep the program a secret for five years from all members of the committee except the chairman and vice chairman, "was unfortunate in that it unnecessarily hindered Congressional oversight of the program." The report adds, that more than five years after the start of the program, "the Committee believes that consideration should be given as to whether it is the best means to obtain a full and reliable intelligence debriefing of a detainee. Both Congress and the Administration must continue to evaluate whether having a separate CIA detention program that operates under different interrogation rules than those applicable to military and law enforcement officers is necessary, lawful, and in the best interests of the United States."