For five years, Democratic Congressional staffers have built a case that the CIA lied about the intelligence gleaned from its most brutal interrogations of terror suspects and covered up some of the more distasteful methods.
Georgia Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss opposed the inquiry to begin with, and has disputed its methods and conclusions at every turn.
The results inched closer to becoming public Thursday, as the Intelligence Committee – including Chambliss — voted to send the investigation summary and a Republican rebuttal to the White House for declassification within the next couple of months.
On the line is the legacy of the post-9/11 activities of our intelligence agencies, an issue that remains fraught with emotion and politicking years after the program was discontinued.
Dramatized on screen in “Zero Dark Thirty,” waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation methods” provided nothing of use in tracking Osama bin Laden, according to the Democrats’ report. Or they did, according to Chambliss and the Republican staff.
The dispute comes from how the reports were compiled.
Chairman Dianne Feinstein’s staff poured through millions of pages of records at a secure CIA location detailing all of the interrogations. In doing so, they got in a spat with the CIA, with the agency accusing congressional staffers of stealing documents and the staffers accusing the agency of spying on their investigation.
What the Democrats did not do, Chambliss said, is interview any of the people involved in the interrogations. The Republicans’ counter-report is a compilation of classified hearing records where these people testified about what they did and what they got.
“There’s just no question of what information was gleaned from those who were interrogated under this program that not only led to the takedown of bin Laden but to the interruption and disruption of other terrorist groups,” Chambliss said in an interview.
But if Congressional testimony after the fact is contradicted by contemporary documents, that presents similar problems of relying on one side of the story.
“The purpose of this review was to uncover the facts behind this secret program and the results, I think, were shocking,” said Feinstein, a California Democrat. “The report exposes brutality that stands in stark contrast to our values as a nation. It chronicles a stain on our history that must never be allowed to happen again. This is not what Americans do.”
As Chambliss heads for retirement at the end of the year, he’s been spending more time cloistered in classified briefings and working on sensitive Intelligence Committee issues. They’ve ranged from the fallout from the Edward Snowden leaks to work on a long-awaited cybersecurity bill.
On most issues, Chambliss and Feinstein have been in lockstep defending the “intelligence community,” the sprawling network that includes the CIA, National Security Agency and others seeking those who wish to do us harm in ways that, once made public, are disturbing to many Americans. They argue the results in protecting against another 9/11 are worth it.
But the interrogations program prompted a split. Feinstein gave a detailed Senate floor speech disputing CIA allegations of document stealing and lamenting that her staff was being "threatened with legal jeopardy." Chambliss declined to back her up, saying merely that an independent investigation is necessary and GOP staffers were not involved.
Chambliss has no illusions about the shock value of the interrogation report. As he told WABE-Radio in Atlanta: “I assure you, (the details) are ugly. But when you say were they successful? Did we glean information from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed that helped us get Osama bin Laden? You bet we did.”
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