Yhdysvaltain senaatti julkaisi tiivistelmän CIA:n kidutusta koskevasta raportista

9.12.2014 | Oikeusuutiset

Markku Fredman

Yhdysvaltain senaatti (Senate Select Committee on Intelligence) on julkaissut 525-sivuisen tiivistelmän yli 6.000-sivuisesta raportista, jossa käsitellään CIA:n kuulustelu- ym. menetelmiä syyskuun 11 päivän 2001 jälkeiseltä ajalta. Raportissa kuvataan laajamittaista kidutusta ja salaisia vankiloita tavalla, joka on tässä kontekstissa poikkeuksellisen avoin.

Raportin esipuheessa komitean puheenjohtaja Dianne Feinstein kuvaa raporttia ja tuloksia seuraavasti:

I have attempted throughout to remember the impact on the nation and to the CIA workforce from the attacks of September 11, 2001. I can understand the CIA’s impulse to consider the use of every possible tool to gather intelligence and remove terrorists from the battlefield, and CIA was encouraged by political leaders and the public to do whatever it could to prevent another attack.

The Intelligence Committee as well often pushes intelligence agencies to act quickly in response to threats and world events.

Nevertheless, such pressure, fear, and expectation of further terrorist plots do not justify, temper, or excuse improper actions taken by individuals or organizations in the name of national security. The major lesson of this report is that regardless of the pressures and the need to act, the Intelligence Community’s actions must always reflect who we are as a nation, and adhere to our laws and standards. It is precisely at these times of national crisis that our government must be guided by the lessons of our history and subject decisions to internal and external review.

Instead, CIA personnel, aided by two outside contractors, decided to initiate a program of indefinite secret detention and the use of brutal interrogation techniques in violation of U.S. law, treaty obligations, and our values.

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President Obama signed Executive Order 13491 in January 2009 to prohibit the CIA from holding detainees other than on a “short-term, transitory basis” and to limit interrogation techniques to those includedin the Army Field Manual. However, these limitations are not part of U.S. law and could be overturned by a future president with the stroke of a pen. They should be enshrined in legislation.

Even so, existing U.S. law and treaty obligations should have prevented many of the abuses and mistakes made during this program. While the Office of Legal Counsel found otherwise between 2002 and 2007, it is my personal conclusion that, under any common meaning of the term, CIA detainees were tortured. I also believe that the conditions of confinement and the use of authorized and unauthorized interrogation and conditioning techniques were cruel, inhuman, and degrading. I believe the evidence of this is overwhelming and incontrovertible.