On May 1, 2011, U.S. Special Forces killed Osama bin Laden. Torture apologists claimed that torture led to bin Laden. They were wrong. Now, Jose Rodriguez, former Director of the National Clandestine Service of the CIA, will publish Hard Measures making the same disproven claims that torture led to bin Laden and kept America safe. He and those who support his claims will again be wrong.
It’s time to set the record straight. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) has reviewed more than 6 million pieces of information and is expected to produce a final report that will exceed 5,000 pages with 20,000 footnotes detailing CIA interrogation and detention practices.
SSCI Chair, Senator Dianne Feinstein, has said that nothing in the review found that torture led to bin Laden. To the contrary, she has said the report contains extensive new information about CIA interrogation and detention policies.
To move forward, we must learn from the mistakes of the past. Ask SSCI to release the real book on torture now. It’s time for the United States government to stand by national security policies based on facts, not fiction. Let’s end this debate: torture is counterproductive, illegal, immoral and unreliable.
