The CIA tortured al-Qaeda suspects with rectal feeding, waterboarding and threats to harm their children and sexually abuse their mothers, according to a long-delayed and highly controversial Senate report published on Tuesday.
One suspect died of hypothermia while naked chained to a floor while at least five detainees were rectally-fed their meals as a method of behavioral control at ‘black sites’ or the Guantanamo military base in Cuba.
One interrogator told another detainee that he would never go to court, ‘because we can never let the world know what I have done to you’.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat chair of the intelligence committee which prepared the report, said on Capitol Hill today that the torture was ‘a stain on our values and on our history’.
Obama added: ‘I will continue to use my authority as President to make sure we never resort to those methods again.’
The 500-page document released on Tuesday included conclusions of a still-secret, 6,700-page report, the results of a five-year, $40 million investigation, which showed that the CIA lied to cover up torture.
The Senate report concluded that ‘the ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ didn’t produce results where it really mattered – most importantly, the killing of Osama bin Laden and the thwarting of terrorist attacks.
After reviewing 6 million agency documents, investigators could find no example of unique and life-saving intelligence gleaned from the coercive techniques that in some cases left detainees hallucinating and suicidal.
The U.S. military was on high alert around the world on Tuesday in preparation for ugly details of American torture techniques being released.
RECTAL FEEDING AND HYDRATION Detainees were subjected to ‘rectal feeding’ and ‘rectal rehydration’ – an enema administered with the intent of providing nutrition when normal feeding is not possible, common in 19th-century medicine.
One detainee Majid Khan was placed in a forward-facing position with his head lower than his torso and his lunch, consisting of hummus, pasta with sauce and raisins was ‘pureed’ and rectally infused.
Khan, who joined al Qaeda after graduating from high school outside Baltimore, Maryland, admitted to plotting to blow up gasoline tanks in the U.S.
