When is the CIA going to be cut down to size? The question seems logical in the light of the damning report issued this week by the US Senate into the interrogation methods the agency adopted in a fit of panic following the 9/11 attacks in 2001.
The report makes clear that the CIA lied to the American public and to Congress about the extent of its use of “enhanced interrogation”, which is now accepted to be a form of torture. To hide the fact that it had no sources of intelligence in Al Qaeda, it consistently exaggerated the success of its interrogation methods.
It had little expertise in the interrogation of terror suspects, but spared no effort to keep its domestic rival, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, away from its detainees, even though the FBI has a good record of success in this field without the excesses that the CIA embraced.
As the expected intelligence failed to materialise, the interrogators stepped up the pressure, with sessions of near-drowning through the technique known as waterboarding, shutting detainees in coffin-like boxes or hanging them from bars for 22 hours a day.
The Senate’s report might lead an innocent observer to conclude that the CIA is a rogue body that needs to be dismantled and rebuilt from first principles. This is a conclusion that only a visiting Martian could make. It is far beyond the bounds of what can be politely said in Washington. The CIA and other branches of the US national security complex are central elements of the American establishment, as firmly entrenched as the principles enshrined in the Constitution.
It was not always thus. Towards the end of the Second World War, when it was clear that America’s role in the world would for the first time be that of a superpower, Franklin D Roosevelt shied away from creating a peacetime spy organisation, fearing it would be seen as America joining in the dirty intrigues of the Old World. His successor, Harry S Truman, said he wanted no hand in “building up a gestapo” – a reference to the Nazi German secret police.
When peace turned into the Cold War, Truman relented and the CIA was born, to work in the shadows and do the nation’s dirty work abroad. To this day the CIA bears the marks of the duality of its birth. Sometimes it is the hero of exploits of derring-do against foreign monsters, but more regularly it stands as an indictment of the deeply held view among older Americans that their country is, and should remain, a force for good in the world.
Time and again the CIA’s successes have returned to haunt it. Its support of a coup against the Iranian prime minister, Mohamad Mosaddegh, in 1953 set the tone for military coups in Syria, and was the subject for a confession by Barack Obama in 2009 when he was trying to make a new start with the Muslim world. CIA support for the military to crush communism in Chile, which led to the overthrow and death of the socialist president Salvador Allende in 1973, still haunts US relations with South America.
The CIA is now central to the US security establishment while at the same time enjoying the privilege of secrecy and being above the law, as if its only business was collecting foreign intelligence, rather than combating enemy terrorists. This is the key to understanding the vitriolic debate in Washington over the Senate foreign intelligence committee’s report on the CIA’s interrogation techniques.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, chair of that committee, is a long-term supporter of the intelligence services. But, at the age of 81, she holds what might be seen as the quaint view that the CIA should be subject to the scrutiny of Congress.
The CIA does not see it that way. Taking advantage of America’s post 9/11 sense of vulnerability – an atmosphere the author David Rothkopf calls Washington’s continuing “age of fear” – the CIA has come to see itself above the law not just abroad, but also at home. The CIA and to a certain extent the White House have tried to delay publication of the report, and to excise as much detail as possible.
Ms Feinstein was outraged when it emerged that the CIA was hacking into the Senate investigators’ computers. Predictably the CIA denied it was doing this but in due course the CIA director, John Brennan, had to apologise. Since then it has been war between Ms Feinstein’s committee and the CIA. Bush-era officials have condemned the report, with Dick Cheney, former vice president, dismissing it with a four-letter word.
The CIA might look as if it was on the back foot. But no one should underestimate the power of the national security industry. According to a new book, National Security and Double Government, by Michael Glennon, a law professor with experience of working in Congress, the security agencies effectively tell the president what to do and write the laws that Congress passes. It should, of course, be the other way round.
In some ways all this is ancient history. The so-called enhanced interrogation techniques are no longer authorised. Since 2004 the CIA has been running a drone operation to kill Al Qaeda-linked militants in Pakistan. This tactic kills large numbers of civilians but avoids the complexities of how to get intelligence out of captives and what to do with them when the interrogation is finished.
It is noteworthy that this dirty business is not conducted by the US military, which might be thought to have a monopoly on the use of air power abroad. The CIA’s role is not just to ensure secrecy and operate in the shadows, but to preserve the honour of the US armed forces and, in bureaucratic terms, to show that the CIA is at the forefront of protecting the homeland. It may have to eat some humble pie, but as long as the age of fear lasts, its future is secure.
Alan Philps is a commentator on global affairs
Twitter: @aphilps
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Specs
Engine: Duel electric motors
Power: 659hp
Torque: 1075Nm
On sale: Available for pre-order now
Price: On request
Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
Electric scooters: some rules to remember
- Riders must be 14-years-old or over
- Wear a protective helmet
- Park the electric scooter in designated parking lots (if any)
- Do not leave electric scooter in locations that obstruct traffic or pedestrians
- Solo riders only, no passengers allowed
- Do not drive outside designated lanes
ELIO
Starring: Yonas Kibreab, Zoe Saldana, Brad Garrett
Directors: Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina
Rating: 4/5
Tearful appearance
Chancellor Rachel Reeves set markets on edge as she appeared visibly distraught in parliament on Wednesday.
Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow.
She appeared with Keir Starmer on Thursday and the pair embraced, but he had failed to give her his backing as she cried a day earlier.
A spokesman said her upset demeanour was due to a personal matter.
The Sand Castle
Director: Matty Brown
Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea
Rating: 2.5/5
BIGGEST CYBER SECURITY INCIDENTS IN RECENT TIMES
SolarWinds supply chain attack: Came to light in December 2020 but had taken root for several months, compromising major tech companies, governments and its entities
Microsoft Exchange server exploitation: March 2021; attackers used a vulnerability to steal emails
Kaseya attack: July 2021; ransomware hit perpetrated REvil, resulting in severe downtime for more than 1,000 companies
Log4j breach: December 2021; attackers exploited the Java-written code to inflitrate businesses and governments
The Buckingham Murders
Starring: Kareena Kapoor Khan, Ash Tandon, Prabhleen Sandhu
Director: Hansal Mehta
Rating: 4 / 5
PULITZER PRIZE 2020 WINNERS
JOURNALISM
Public Service
Anchorage Daily News in collaboration with ProPublica
Breaking News Reporting
Staff of The Courier-Journal, Louisville, Ky.
Investigative Reporting
Brian M. Rosenthal of The New York Times
Explanatory Reporting
Staff of The Washington Post
Local Reporting
Staff of The Baltimore Sun
National Reporting
T. Christian Miller, Megan Rose and Robert Faturechi of ProPublica
and
Dominic Gates, Steve Miletich, Mike Baker and Lewis Kamb of The Seattle Times
International Reporting
Staff of The New York Times
Feature Writing
Ben Taub of The New Yorker
Commentary
Nikole Hannah-Jones of The New York Times
Criticism
Christopher Knight of the Los Angeles Times
Editorial Writing
Jeffery Gerritt of the Palestine (Tx.) Herald-Press
Editorial Cartooning
Barry Blitt, contributor, The New Yorker
Breaking News Photography
Photography Staff of Reuters
Feature Photography
Channi Anand, Mukhtar Khan and Dar Yasin of the Associated Press
Audio Reporting
Staff of This American Life with Molly O’Toole of the Los Angeles Times and Emily Green, freelancer, Vice News for “The Out Crowd”
LETTERS AND DRAMA
Fiction
"The Nickel Boys" by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday)
Drama
"A Strange Loop" by Michael R. Jackson
History
"Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America" by W. Caleb McDaniel (Oxford University Press)
Biography
"Sontag: Her Life and Work" by Benjamin Moser (Ecco/HarperCollins)
Poetry
"The Tradition" by Jericho Brown (Copper Canyon Press)
General Nonfiction
"The Undying: Pain, Vulnerability, Mortality, Medicine, Art, Time, Dreams, Data, Exhaustion, Cancer, and Care" by Anne Boyer (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
and
"The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America" by Greg Grandin (Metropolitan Books)
Music
"The Central Park Five" by Anthony Davis, premiered by Long Beach Opera on June 15, 2019
Special Citation
Ida B. Wells
Jetour T1 specs
Engine: 2-litre turbocharged
Power: 254hp
Torque: 390Nm
Price: From Dh126,000
Available: Now
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills