Closed File

We knew it without really knowing everything, we guessed, but imagination did not go that far. The summary of the report of the acts of torture perpetrated by the CIA following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 can itself be summed up in one word: barbarity — against which, same as yesterday, no one is taking action.

For months, the dividing line has been clear, and this did not change on Tuesday. On one side, the Democratic members of the Senate Intelligence Committee stubbornly insisted that the findings of the senatorial investigation undertaken in 2009 on the methods used by the CIA in its fight against terrorism be published — the full report having been ready months earlier. On the other side are the Republican members of the same committee, and the leaders at the time — like then Vice President Dick Cheney — furious as much at the publication as its content, which was nevertheless heavily expurgated, since the 6,000-page report had been reduced to a synthesis of 524 pages.

This foreseeable political clash distracted attention from another malaise, emanating this time from the higher spheres of the Obama administration, which is also worried, but less discreetly, about the publication. Last Friday, Secretary of State John Kerry directly contacted Sen. Dianne Feinstein, president of the Intelligence Committee, to warn her against the impact the document would have in the countries whose nationals had been tortured. The goal was not to delay it, as was later explained, but Sen. Feinstein could not ignore the pressure that was exerted.

However, fortunately, publication did take place and the reports that fill page after page are appalling.

Hell is a place on earth; human history has shown this already. That the United States has its part in the horrors of the world has been amply documented. In its defense, the world’s greatest democratic power is at least used to reports where it gives its mea culpas, except that the lessons are not retained. Worse still, it manages to dress the tricks in new finery that pushes its limits farther outward each time.

For the militants of al-Qaida, a sophisticated legal construction had already been deployed that made it permissible to conclude that acts of torture were in fact nothing but “enhanced interrogation techniques,” permitting the establishment of the CIA detention and interrogation program in 2002 with the secret authorization of the George W. Bush administration, which lasted his entire presidency.

This program was not unanimously agreed upon within the agency, but the least amount of internal reticence — yes, there was some, a fresh breeze of humanity in this troubling report — was denigrated and ignored. The CIA exaggerated the efficiency of the interrogations carried out and understated their duration, and this even at the presidential level. All supervision of its actions, whether from the Department of Justice, Congress or the inspector general of the CIA, was hindered — even the members of the senatorial committee were spied on! The report doesn’t stop, in fact, at demonstrating the omnipotence of one group of directors, as much in the CIA as in the Bush administration, that made sure to keep Colin Powell in the dark, knew just what to say to Condoleezza Rice and counted on President Bush’s indolence.

We also notice that even if the world of intelligence is harsh, and was made even more implacable by the attacks on Sept. 11 2001, there is a minimum that agents are expected to respect. With the new interrogation program, the lowest levels were reached: agents known for their incompetence or their deviance [were involved], under the guidance of two psychologists who had never carried out investigations, but had their own ideas about the effective way of making people talk. We owe them the worst inventions of the CIA program. Thanks to the extent of their expertise, they even created their own business, to which the American intelligence agency subcontracted follow-up on the issue — for a sum of $81 million! It is also because of information like this that one itches to read the document.

It remains to be applauded that all of this has been made public and that transparency, concern for admitting one’s errors — if not within the CIA, which will admit nothing at all — as well as the wish to restore American values [has been attempted]. It really should be. But afterward?

Afterward, nothing. The senatorial report denounces the fact that the CIA managed its personnel badly and rarely dealt with the agents responsible for the gravest violations. But the Obama administration will do the same. The Department of Justice was quick to announce on Monday that there would be no legal action taken because the report contains no new information. That’s the way it goes in the world’s greatest democracy: All has been said, so the file is closed.