CIA headquarters in McLean, Virginia. Pentagon and intelligence officials confirmed early Monday they believe that releasing the Senate report on alleged use of torture by the CIA will spark violence home and abroad. (Photo: AP)
A Democrat-led Senate panel headed up by Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) released the CIA report on enhanced interrogation Tuesday despite dire warnings from lawmakers and intel officials. In response, the GOP minority released a rebuttal report refuting the claims made in the Democrats’ majority report, which criticized the CIA enhanced interrogation program as ineffective and misleading.
The conflicting reports have once again resurrected the debate over alleged torture — or “enhanced interrogation techniques” that may or may not actually equate to torture — which has been ongoing in the U.S. since the post-9/11 period.
CIA officials pushed back hard on the claims made in the report, including Jose Rodriguez, the ex-CIA chief in charge of the enhanced interrogation program, who said Tuesday that Senate Democrats released a bogus partisan report aimed to throw the CIA “under the bus” in order to cover for themselves; CIA Director John Brennan, who in a first-of-its-kind news conference Thursday slammed the Senate report; former CIA Directors George J. Tenet, Porter J. Goss and Michael V. Hayden, and former CIA Deputy Directors John E. McLaughlin, Albert M. Calland and Stephen R. Kappes, who together all penned an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal claiming, in fact, the program did work and provided detailed accounts of actionable intelligence gathering to prove it.
“Our view on this is shared by the CIA and the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Republican minority,” the three former CIA heads wrote. “Both critiques are clear-eyed, fact-based assessments that challenge the majority’s contentions in a nonpartisan way.”
Meanwhile, former Vice President Dick Cheney flat-out called the report “full of crap,” and a “terrible piece of work” that was “deeply flawed” during an interview with Bret Baier on Special Report.
A group of former CIA officials launched a website called CIASavedLives.com in response to the committee’s majority report, defending the agency’s tactics.
But how do Americans feel about enhanced interrogation, or “torture”? While soon-to-be released polling from the usual suspects will add to this conversation — for better or worse — those results will no doubt depend on how the pollsters word their questions to respondents.
For instance, a new poll released by Rasmussen Reports finds voters strongly believe it would have been better for Congress to keep the CIA’s interrogation methods a secret, particularly if the disclosures put the American public at risk.
A whole 69 percent of likely voters say they feel it is more important to protect the safety of Americans from terrorist attacks than for the public to know the full details of how the CIA got its information. Further, just 23 percent say it’s more important to publicly disclose the full extent of the CIA’s interrogation methods.
The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on December 9-10, 2014 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.
A 2012 FOX Poll found roughly two-thirds of registered voters supported enhanced interrogation to prevent terrorist attacks, as well. A a new HuffPost/YouGov survey finds Americans are more likely than not (48 – 42 percent) to say torture is sometimes justified, but are less likely to support some of the specific tactics used against detainees.
However, according to Gallup, who has never found majority support for the tactic, getting specific on the tactics will result in even less support for the CIA program.
Gallup first asked Americans if they were willing to allow the CIA to torture “terrorists if they know details about future attacks in the U.S.” in October 2001, when 53 percent of Americans said they would not be willing to allow such tactics.
We had a problem with all of the questioning formats, because we felt they didn’t truly get to the heart of the issue, nor accurately depict the choice. So, we conducted a PPD Poll from December 9 – 11, posing to 1,010 American adults several questions that varied in language. The results are clear — words matter. Gallup consistently uses the word torture, as did the Huffington Post/YouGov poll, despite a significant number of Americans changing their response when enhanced interrogation is used?
Here was the first question and the results:
Would you support the CIA using enhanced interrogation techniques on ISIS or other radical Islamic terrorists if it meant preventing another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001?
When posed the initial question above, which made the honest choice to focus only on radical Islam for the obvious reason, 52 percent said they would while 38 percent said they would not. Perhaps a reflection of the ongoing debate, a significant 10 percent said they aren’t sure, of which, 7 percent said they previously had an opinion on the issue.
It would appear many Americans are having second thoughts.
Among a sub-sample of adults who correctly identified at least three of the specific tactics, nearly-thirds (65 percent) said they support enhanced interrogation, while 21 percent said they do not. The results indicate that those who oppose enhanced interrogation due so despite caring a whole lot about the specific facts or tactics. Instead, opposition is based on ideological grounds.
An even more accurate wording was posed to respondents next:
Would you support the CIA using enhanced interrogation techniques if they were required to have a doctor present, detainees were told they would not be physically harmed or killed, and it meant preventing another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001?
This question resulted in a significant increase in support, as 63 percent said they would support the use of enhanced interrogation, while just 22 percent said they would not under these conditions and circumstances. Still, 15 percent of American adults indicated they were unsure.
Despite the telling results from these two questions, they still do not strike at the heart of the moral arguments made by both sides of this issue. The final question was tailored to do just that, and the results were both surprising and unsurprising.
Would you support the CIA enhanced interrogation techniques if it was required to have a doctor present, it meant preventing another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001, and it would save the life of your closest relative or significant other?
Interestingly, even though the level of support among those who correctly identified at least three of the specific tacts remained relatively stable (66 percent), the overall spread from the first question increased significantly. Unsurprisingly, when pressed, those who previously expressed uncertainty, suddenly aren’t so unsure whether they want their loved ones to live, as a total of 73 percent said they would support enhanced interrogation under these circumstances. However, 21 percent still claim a moral objection under these circumstances.
May we pray they never have the courage of their convictions tested in the future.
