Danielle Pletka writes at
The New York Times:
The outgoing Democratic leadership of the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report on C.I.A. rendition, detention and interrogation of terrorists in the years following the 9/11 attacks. But here's a red flag: Not one person who managed or ran the interrogation program was interviewed.
Why does it matter? Because the way this “report” was generated colors the notional facts it professes to share. Many of the “revelations” of C.I.A. techniques and black sites are old hat to most. Some approve; others don’t. Fair enough, and in a democracy, such a debate is worthy. The larger challenge comes in determining the efficacy of these techniques. Opponents insist (fueled less by fact and more by their sense of righteousness) that enhanced interrogation doesn’t work. So claims the outgoing chairman, of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein.
Here is the problem: Her claim is false. And taken in conjunction with the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s unwillingness to interview the targets of their critique, one can only assume that much of the rest of the document is also tainted.
Three former C.I.A. directors -- George J. Tenet, Porter J. Goss and Michael V. Hayden -- and three former deputy directors -- John E. McLaughlin, Albert M. Calland and Stephen R. Kappes -- take down the report’s claims in a short rebuttal that eviscerates Feinstein’s central accusations that interrogation revealed no actionable intelligence and provided no assistance in the capture of Bin Laden, and that C.I.A. officers engaged in excesses of torture beyond limits allowed by the Department of Justice.
