A Senate Intelligence Committee report released this week that says the CIA used much harsher interrogation techniques on suspected terrorists than previously disclosed is the latest blow to relationships between the U.S. intelligence community and its allies.
Not only is the report likely to be a setback to efforts to ease relationships already frayed by the revelations of National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, but it’s also likely to spark a wave of prosecutions and lawsuits of current and former U.S. intelligence officers, especially in Europe.
“This, though, is much more serious, in that it exposes our working relationships,” Rep. Robert Pittenger, head of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism, told the Washington Examiner. “It’s going to hurt our working relationships with our allies.”
Pittenger, a North Carolina Republican who has led efforts to relieve transatlantic tensions stemming from Snowden’s revelations, bristled at suggestions the report’s conclusions — which have been hotly disputed by both current and former intelligence officials — show that the United States has stooped to the level of its enemies.
“There is no correlation between the barbaric acts of terrorists who gleefully kill innocent Americans and the critical role of the CIA to obtain vital information to protect us from those committed to our destruction,” he said. “The terrorists who were interrogated are still alive. Thousands of innocent Americans are dead.”
Initial European response to the report was muted, with the harshest criticism being levied by German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government, which is still steaming over revelations that the NSA tapped her cell phone conversations.
“The upholding of legal and democratic values must be the foundation of our joint fight against terrorism,” the government said. “Only in this way can we gain credibility for our actions in this fight.”
But U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein noted Wednesday that there was no legal distinction or justification for acts determined to be torture, in a statement that’s likely to set the stage for a new round of attempts to prosecute U.S. officials.
“In all countries, if someone commits murder, they are prosecuted and jailed,” he said. “If they commit rape or armed robbery, they are prosecuted and jailed. If they order, enable or commit torture — recognized as a serious international crime — they cannot simply be granted impunity because of political expediency. When that happens, we undermine this exceptional convention, and — as a number of U.S. political leaders clearly acknowledged yesterday — we undermine our own claims to be civilized societies rooted in the rule of law.”
Indeed, groups that already have tried to prosecute former President George W. Bush and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in Europe and elsewhere warned a new round of cases would come if U.S. courts don’t hold those guilty of the extreme interrogations accountable.
“We renew our demand for accountability for those individuals responsible for the CIA torture program. They should be prosecuted in U.S. courts; and if our government continues to refuse to hold them accountable, they must be pursued internationally under the principles of universal jurisdiction,” said Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has represented several accused al Qaeda figures subjected to U.S. interrogation.
