CIA does not use torture - director
The CIA uses “unique and innovative ways” to obtain vital information from prisoners but strictly obeys laws against torture, CIA director Porter Goss said.
He defended the organisation against allegations of torture, claiming there was a “huge amount of misinformation” swirling about on the subject of detainees.
“This agency does not do torture. Torture does not work,” he told USA Today.
“We use lawful capabilities to collect vital information, and we do it in a variety of unique and innovative ways, all of which are legal and none of which are torture.”
Republican Senator John McCain has proposed legislation that would restrict interrogation techniques to ban “cruel, inhuman or degrading” treatment of detainees.
The move provoked a storm in Congress. The White House has threatened to veto any bill that includes the measure and Vice President Dick Cheney has tried to exempt the CIA from such laws.
Mr Goss said the CIA remained officially neutral on the proposal but the newspaper said he “made clear” that techniques that would be restricted under the proposal have yielded valuable intelligence.
Mr Goss declined to describe interrogation methods exclusive to the CIA.
“An enemy that’s working in an amorphous network that doesn’t have to worry about a bunch of regulations, chain of command, rule of law or anything else has got a huge advantage over a stultified, slow-moving, bureaucratic, by-the-book organisation,” he said.
“So we have to, within the law and within all the requirements of our professional ethics in this profession, develop agility. And that means putting a lot of judgement in the hands of individuals overseas.”
Mr Goss also refused to discuss reports alleging that the CIA maintains secret detention centres at military bases in central Europe.
He said media leaks about allies helping the CIA in capturing and interrogating detainees may provoke reprisal terrorist attacks.
Former CIA director Admiral Stansfield Turner last week accused Mr Cheney of being a “vice president for torture.”
Admiral Turner, who was in charge of the CIA during the 1970s, accused him of overseeing torture policies and said he was damaging America’s reputation by doing so.
“He (Mr Cheney) advocates torture, what else is it? I just don’t understand how a man in that position can take such a stance,” he told ITV news.
“I think it is just reprehensible.”
