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CIA torture techniques proved to be ineffective: Analyst

Thursday, 26 January 2017 11:07 AM [ Last Update: Thursday, 26 January 2017 11:07 AM ]

This file photo shows the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) logo in the lobby of CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

The administration of US President Donald Trump is preparing an executive order to reopen the CIA’s undocumented overseas prisons, known as black sites, where people were tortured as part of the so-called war on terror. The Human Rights Watch (HRW) has voiced concerns, calling on the US Congress to intervene in the decision.

The CIA employed brutal techniques like waterboarding, physical abuse, sleep deprivation, mock executions, and anal penetration performed under cover of “rehydration” to interrogate terror suspects imprisoned after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

A former CIA agent believes brutal torture techniques are “catastrophically harmful, illegal, unnecessary,” and they have been repudiated.

“In fact it was the United States that repudiated this over hundred years ago. In 1902, the United States prosecuted, tried, convicted and hanged US soldiers for the expressed war crime of waterboarding which was used by them on a few occasions in the Philippine Insurrection,” Glenn Carle told Press TV in an interview on Thursday.

“So the US had been, was out front in denouncing this and recognizing this as a war crime. We also tried, convicted, and hanged Japanese soldiers and intelligence officers after World War II for the expressed war crime of waterboarding,” he added.

The analyst also asserted that torture has been outlawed by the US Constitution, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the Convention against Torture, and various other statutes.

Therefore, he said, this is Trump’s “delusional perception” that torture works because it does not.

Carle further stressed that the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques were “highly contested” and “counterproductive”, adding that they do not lead to any useful intelligence and were recognized as “illegal.”

According to the analyst, there have been empirical scientific examinations by psychologists and professional interrogators to see whether torture has any benefits and they have proved it to be “ineffective.”

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CIA United States of America War on Terror US Congress World War II Torture enhanced interrogation techniques Psychologists detention center waterboarding torture technique Trump HRW