Bush-era lawmakers defend CIA terror-tactics as agency's chief admits mistakes
- 9 years ago
Former US Vice President Dick Cheney has spoken out against the Senate’s highly critical report on CIA interrogation methods, describing it as “full of crap”.
Meanwhile a psychologist who devised the CIA’s Bush-era programme said there should be more concern about Drone usage than the treatment of detainees like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
James Mitchell who is a former US Air Force psychologist spoke to VICE NEWS:
“To me it seems completely insensible that slapping KSM ( Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.) is bad , but sending a Hellfire missile into a family’s picnic and killing all their children, and you know, killing granny and killing everyone is ok, for a lot of reasons. One of the reasons is. what about the collateral loss of life?And the other one is that if you kill them you can’t question them.”
While the debate rages on, the current CIA Director John Brennan has acknowledged the agency has in the past made mistakes, but he rejected the report’s findings that
harsh techniques did not produce valuable intelligence about militants that could not be obtained by other means.
There has been extensive condemnation of the brutality of some of the CIA’s methods however, Brennan added the agency is often asked to do difficult things on behalf of the USA.
Meanwhile a psychologist who devised the CIA’s Bush-era programme said there should be more concern about Drone usage than the treatment of detainees like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
James Mitchell who is a former US Air Force psychologist spoke to VICE NEWS:
“To me it seems completely insensible that slapping KSM ( Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.) is bad , but sending a Hellfire missile into a family’s picnic and killing all their children, and you know, killing granny and killing everyone is ok, for a lot of reasons. One of the reasons is. what about the collateral loss of life?And the other one is that if you kill them you can’t question them.”
While the debate rages on, the current CIA Director John Brennan has acknowledged the agency has in the past made mistakes, but he rejected the report’s findings that
harsh techniques did not produce valuable intelligence about militants that could not be obtained by other means.
There has been extensive condemnation of the brutality of some of the CIA’s methods however, Brennan added the agency is often asked to do difficult things on behalf of the USA.