The Plum Line
Greg Sargent's blog
White House To Declassify “Holy Grail” Torture Report That Could
Undercut Cheney

There’s a big piece of news about Dick Cheney and torture buried toward
the end of this big Washington Post piece about the torture wars.

Specifically: The White House has decided to declassify and release a
classified 2004 CIA report about the torture program that is reported to
have found no proof that torture foiled any terror plots on American
soil — directly contradicting Cheney’s claims. The paper cites “allies”
of the White House as a source.

Dem Congressional staffers tell me this report is the “holy grail,”
because it is expected to detail torture in unprecedented detail and to
cast doubt on the claim that torture works — and its release will almost
certainly trigger howls of protest from conservatives. Tellingly,
neither the CIA nor the White House knocked down the story in response
to my questions, with spokespeople for both declining comment. Here’s
the key nugget from the Post piece:

Government officials familiar with the CIA’s early interrogations
say the most powerful evidence of apparent excesses is contained in the
“top secret” May 7, 2004, inspector general report, based on more than
100 interviews, a review of the videotapes and 38,000 pages of
documents. The full report remains closely held, although White House
officials have told political allies that they intend to declassify it
for public release when the debate quiets over last month’s release of
the Justice Department’s interrogation memos…

Although some useful information was produced, the report concluded
that “it is difficult to determine conclusively whether interrogations
have provided information critical to interdicting specific imminent
attacks,” according to the Justice Department’s declassified summary of it.

This news is particularly timely in light of Cheney’s continuing
high-profile claims that torture may have saved “hundreds of thousands
of lives.” The report is the one I wrote about recently that the ACLU
obtained through litigation in highly redacted form. It has an entire
redacted section that discusses the “effectiveness” of torture — or lack
thereof.

The release of this thing is going to be a big deal. You heard it here
first.