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+15.  The release of the CIA torture report, an extensive review inhuman torture techniques used by the CIA practices carried out in detention camps between 2001 and 2006, has evoked a desperate outcry from the international community.The 6000 page report took 5 years and approximately $40million to write and gives a thorough description of how many CIA officials used torture and provided inaccurate or false information about the techniques they were using and how efficient they actually were. After an eight month long deliberation the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) decided to release 525 pages of the report on December 9th 2014. The world was shocked as the report made the debate of torture feature on news channels and acts of the CIA caused outrage from the public.

A critique of the report made by politicians and CIA officials alike is that it itself is ambiguous in that we cannot certify it has the empirical evidence to make such allegations. Nonetheless the fact that IETs actually weren’t as effective as CIA officials had made out and that in return the justification used to allow torture was inaccurate and invalid was one of the first findings of the report. Other findings recalled that the detention camps were in far worse conditions than officials made out and that the CIA had repeatedly lied to the Department of Justice and had avoided an overview from Congress. It has been also alleged that the CIA coordinated the release of information to the Media in order to portray torture as being effective.

In response to high security threats the US government introduced ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ (EITs) which include nudity, sleep deprivation and many other psychologically damaging acts. EITs are considered a form of torture by the United Nations yet were deemed acceptable by the CIA and the Department of Defence in 2003 as they were ‘safe, legal and effective’. When EITs were applied in 2002 the few declassified documents referred to the ‘psychological evaluations of detainees, such assessments of detainees made available as a result of Freedom of Information Act litigation consist primarily of identification of psychological vulnerabilities, without any assessment of possible physical or mental harm’ (Bad Science Used to Support Torture and Human Experimentation). Scientists involved in the study continuously failed to monitor any long-term psychological damage which would affect the torture victim, making the enhanced interrogation techniques even more unethical than they initially appear.

 In 2007 the George Bush Administration provided a new interpretation of the Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions to a program of detention and interrogation by the CIA; according to accounts and administrative sources, although EITs are fully classified by the CIA, it appears that the acts of waterboarding - that is a simulation of drowning imposed on the torture victim - has been officially ruled out (Executive Order, July 20, 2007). The 2007 executive ruling does not explicitly negate all forms of EITs yet it does state that there shall be no breaches to the War Crimes Act or the Torture Act. Having stated this, it is evident that forms of EITs do violate the War Crimes Act and other US laws on torture which therefore means that if an executive order were to authorise their use the interrogators could be held responsible for war crimes or other human rights violations. Upon examination of the EITs used it is evident that, not only are they in violations of laws, but they also prove to carry out unacceptable collateral damage to victims which is both scientifically and politically unethical.  The next big question is how will the world respond?

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