CIA’s abuses, failures in interrogation really shouldn’t surprise us

Anyone skeptical about entrusting ambitious tasks to the government was not stunned by the dismal rollout of the Affordable Care Act. It featured technical glitches, cost overruns and false advertising (“If you like your plan, you’ll be able to keep it.”). Things got so bad that President Barack Obama apologized and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius resigned.

This epic fail occurred even though the administration had more than three years to prepare for the launch and $840 million to spend developing the website. It was a textbook case of government bungling.

Truth be told, a rocky start should have been expected. When the government adopted a new Medicare program covering prescription drugs in 2005, after all, it encountered similar problems.

Faced with the conflicting claims about the CIA’s use of “enhanced interrogation” methods on suspected terrorists, most of us have neither the time nor the expertise to sift through all the evidence to make a definitive judgment. But here’s a useful exercise: Imagine that in the aftermath of 9/11, the person in charge of the CIA was Kathleen Sebelius.

Why would we expect the spy agency to do a more honest or effective job in getting information from detainees than HHS did in handling health insurance customers? The assumption among the Bush administration’s defenders is that our intelligence community is made up of star performers with peerless skills and impeccable judgment. But it’s not clear the CIA workforce is appreciably different from the rest of the Washington bureaucracy.

The Senate Intelligence Committee report indicates it isn’t. It says the agency couldn’t keep track of how many detainees it had in custody and then lied to cover its failure. Some 26 captives were “wrongfully held.”

The committee found the CIA “placed individuals with no applicable experience or training in senior detention and interrogation roles, and provided inadequate linguistic and analytical support to conduct effective questioning.”

It quoted one senior official who complained that “managers seem to be selecting either problem, underperforming officers, new, totally inexperienced officers, or whomever seems to be willing and able to deploy at any given time.” The result, the official said, was “useless intelligence.”

No one should be slack-jawed to learn that the people in charge didn’t bother to assess whether they were doing a good job in protecting the nation from terrorism. They took that on faith. They placed complete confidence in their own motives and skill.

“The CIA never conducted a credible, comprehensive analysis of the effectiveness of its enhanced interrogation techniques,” said the committee. “There are no CIA records to indicate that any of the reviews independently validated the ‘effectiveness’ claims presented by the CIA, to include the basic confirmation that the intelligence cited by the CIA was acquired from CIA detainees during or after the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques.”

Conflicting evidence was ignored. It was easier for agency leaders to believe their own propaganda and squelch dissent in the ranks. “The CIA marginalized and ignored numerous internal critiques, criticisms and objections,” concluded the senators.

All of this is in keeping with a long list of government failures. The people who presided over the torture program were the same people who invaded Iraq expecting to be showered with daffodils.

They were also the same people who oversaw the Federal Emergency Management Agency when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. On that matter, a Republican-dominated special House committee was scathing in its judgment.

“It remains difficult to understand how government could respond so ineffectively to a disaster that was anticipated for years, and for which specific dire warnings had been issued for days,” the committee said. “This crisis was not only predictable, it was predicted.” That failure compounded the government’s sloppy construction and maintenance of the levees that were supposed to protect the city.

The 9/11 attack, by contrast, was not anticipated, and the CIA was not prepared to gather intelligence from thousands of captured foreigners believed to be fighting on behalf of al-Qaida or the Taliban. The United States had signed an international treaty renouncing the use of torture.

So the agency found itself rapidly putting into practice methods with which it had no experience or expertise, on disputable legal grounds. In responding to the 9/11 attack, it botched its responsibility, abused its powers, concealed its failures and exaggerated its achievements.

Wow. Who could have seen that coming?

Steve Chapman writes daily at newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/steve_chapman.

Talk to us

> Give us your news tips.

> Send us a letter to the editor.

> More Herald contact information.

More in Opinion

toon
Editorial cartoons for Thursday, March 28

A sketchy look at the news of the day.… Continue reading

Initiative promoter Tim Eyman takes a selfie photo before the start of a session of Thurston County Superior Court, Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2021, in Olympia, Wash. Eyman, who ran initiative campaigns across Washington for decades, will no longer be allowed to have any financial control over political committees, under a ruling from Superior Court Judge James Dixon Wednesday that blasted Eyman for using donor's contributions to line his own pocket. Eyman was also told to pay more than $2.5 million in penalties. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
Editorial: Initiative fee increase protects process, taxpayers

Bumped up to $156 from $5, the increase may discourage attempts to game the initiative process.

Protecting forests and prevent another landslide like Oso

Thank you for the powerful and heartbreaking article about the Oso landslide… Continue reading

Boeing’s downfall started when engineers demoted

Boeing used to be run by engineers who made money to build… Continue reading

Learn swimming safety to protect kids at beach, pool

Don’t forget to dive into water safety before hitting the pool or… Continue reading

Comment: Why shootings have decreased but gun deaths haven’t

High-capacity magazines and ‘Glock switches’ that allow automatic fire have increased lethality.

Washington state senators and representatives along with Governor Inslee and FTA Administrator Nuria Fernandez break ground at the Swift Orange Line on Tuesday, April 19, 2022 in Lynnwood, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Editorial: Community Transit making most of Link’s arrival

The Lynnwood light rail station will allow the transit agency to improve routes and frequency of buses.

An image of Everett Mayor Cassie Franklin is reflected in a storefront window during the State of the City Address on Thursday, March 21, 2024, at thee Everett Mall in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Editorial: State of city address makes case for Everett’s future

Mayor Franklin outlines challenges and responses as the city approaches significant decisions.

FILE - The massive mudslide that killed 43 people in the community of Oso, Wash., is viewed from the air on March 24, 2014. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)
Editorial: Mapping landslide risks honors those lost in Oso

Efforts continue in the state to map areas prone to landslides and prevent losses of life and property.

toon
Editorial cartoons for Wednesday, March 27

A sketchy look at the news of the day.… Continue reading

Burke: ‘Why not write about Biden, for once?’ Don’t mind if I do.

They asked; I’ll oblige. Let’s consider what the president has accomplished since the 2020 election.

Comment: Catherine missed chance to dispel shame of cancer

She wasn’t obligated to do so, but she might have used her diagnosis to educate a sympathetic public.

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.