CIA Director John Brennan told lawmakers on Thursday that people at the CIA have indeed been held accountable for the agency’s post-9/11 torture program.
Brennan refused, however, to get into the details publicly, saying the matter is classified. He made the claims during a public hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee.
“Is it still the case that no one has been held accountable for the systemic failures that the agency has acknowledged?” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked the CIA chief during the proceedings. Wyden referenced the agency’s response to the exhaustive Senate torture report released at the end of 2014. In it, the agency admitted to “significant shortcomings” in “handling of accountability.”
Brennan responded, claiming that over the last several years, the agency “took actions” against those involved the program’s illicit activities.
“There was individual accountability taken as well as accountability for some of those management and systemic failures,” he added. Brennan then said he couldn’t proffer any more information unless the committee moved into a classified session.
“If that’s the case, I certainly think that’s constructive,” Wyden responded somewhat skeptically. “I will await your classified response so that we have more details on that.”
The CIA’s enhanced interrogation program operated in clear violation of not just US prohibitions against torture, but also international treaty obligations. And, according to the latter, the Obama administration is complicit in crimes related to torture for failing to hold any perpetrators accountable.
As the Center for Constitutional Rights has noted: “Article 4 of the [United Nation’s] Convention Against Torture requires the new Obama administration convene a criminal investigation into the illegal acts and those responsible for them.”
Although the Senate Intelligence Committee investigated the CIA’s crimes in a 6,000-page report, the Justice Department has shied away from any probes or prosecutions. Before assuming office in 2009, President Obama signaled that he had little interest in revisiting the crimes of the Bush administration.
He told ABC News that he holds “a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.”
Obama added that “at the CIA, you’ve got extraordinarily talented people who are working very hard to keep Americans safe. I don’t want them to suddenly feel like they’ve got to spend all their time looking over their shoulders and lawyering.”
The Obama administration has aggressively prosecuted the one individual involved in the CIA torture program: a man who blew the whistle on it.
Analyst John Kiriakou revealed to a journalist in 2007 that the agency had repeatedly waterboarded accused al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah. He was subsequently charged with improperly disclosing classified information and violating the Espionage Act. Kiriakou ended up serving nearly two years in prison.
