Feinstein: Brennan wrong on success of CIA tactics

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said Thursday she disagreed with CIA Director John Brennan’s assessment that it is “unknowable” whether enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs) were useful. 

Feinstein’s panel earlier this week released a 500-plus page summary of a report that concluded waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics were not helpful in stopping terrorist attacks.

{mosads}Brennan and Republicans have sharply pushed back at the report, but Feinstein stood by it on Thursday, arguing that intelligence useful in thwarting attacks wasn’t captured through the tactics.

“The report shows that such information in fact was obtained through other means, both traditional CIA human intelligence and from other agencies,” she said in a statement.  

Brennan fiercely defended the agency during a rare CIA press conference on Thursday.

“Detainees who were subjected to EITs at some point during their confinement subsequently provided information that our experts found to be useful and valuable in our counterterrorism efforts,” he said. 

However, he added, “The cause and effect relationship between the application of those EITs and the ultimate provision of information is unknown and unknowable.”

Feinstein said it was good that Brennan did not claim any “successes” due to the techniques: “This is a welcome change from the CIA’s position in the past that information was obtained as a direct result of EITs.”

She also said she was surprisingly pleased by his comments acknowledging mistakes made in the beginning of the interrogation program. 

“CIA Director Brennan’s comments were not what I expected. They showed that CIA leadership is prepared to prevent this from ever happening again — which is all-important,” she said.  

Still, she said the CIA is supposed to “speak truth to power” in briefing Congress, and that it did not do so in 2006 and 2007 because descriptions of the interrogations did not “accurately reflect reality.”

“The vast majority of CIA’s employees are dedicated and skilled professionals who had nothing to do with detention and interrogation. For them, I am pleased that Director Brennan is attempting to acknowledge past mistakes by the agency in order to focus on current and future missions and make sure that a program like this is never considered again,” she said.