Retired general Antonio Taguba writes in NYT that Pres. Obama needs to hold the CIA accountable

from the NYT editorial page:

Stop the C.I.A. Spin on Torture
Stop the C.I.A. Spin on the Senate Torture Report


____ Even though a bipartisan majority of the committee voted to declassify the report, there is a concerted effort to discredit it by depicting it as partisan and unfair. The report’s detractors include the C.I.A. itself: The agency’s rebuttal will be released alongside the report’s key sections. While the C.I.A. is under no obligation to stay silent in the face of criticism, it seems that between its apparently excessive redactions and its spying on the committee’s computers, the agency is determined to resist oversight . . .

Ultimately, as we learned with Abu Ghraib, the best way of guarding against torture is an American public well informed about the moral and strategic costs of such abuse. In the absence of an open accounting, polls show that support for torture among Americans has increased over recent years as proponents sow doubt about whether abusive interrogation is, in fact, illegitimate. So I am very concerned by the pre-emptive efforts of the C.I.A. to derail what we know to be strong criticism of the agency’s conduct during the “war on terror.”

Agency officials, past and current, surely believe that by seeking to undermine the credibility of the report, they are acting in the best interests of the agency. But when the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein, has accused you of spying, you may want to reconsider your P.R. strategy. Yet we learn that the former C.I.A. director George J. Tenet, who presided over the “enhanced interrogation” program and later claimed that “We don’t torture people,” is working with the current director, John O. Brennan, to shape the agency’s response to the report.

One of President Obama’s greatest actions as president and commander in chief came on his second full day in office, when he signed an executive order banning torture. But he has allowed the C.I.A. to oversee the redaction process of this report, and is now apparently allowing Mr. Tenet to run a publicity campaign against it. The president should make sure that Mr. Brennan — who is, after all, his employee — spurns Mr. Tenet and accepts oversight.

A failure of leadership took the country to the dark side. A strong presidential lead can ensure that we don’t go back.


read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/06/opinion/stop-the-cia-spin-on-the-senate-torture-report.html

A retired major general in the U.S. Army, Antonio Taguba authored the document that became known as the “Taguba Report,” which exposed abuse at the Abu Gharib prison in Iraq. Taguba documented widespread “sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses.” The report was published and leaked in 2004. Along with the infamous photos, his report sparked a national debate about torture. Taguba was asked to retire in 2006, presumably due to his dissent on the torture issue. He later characterized the Bush administration’s actions as war crimes and called for the prosecution of those responsible.
http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/torturetruth