Senate Armed Services Committee Releases Report on Torture

Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Carl Levin (D-MI) and Ranking Member John McCain (R-Ariz.) yesterday released the executive summary and conclusions of the Committee's report on detainee treatment.  The summary and conclusions are here; Senator Levin's press release, with relevant links, is here.  Here's the long and short of it:

The abuse of detainees in U.S. custody cannot simply be attributed to the actions of "a few bad apples" acting on their own.  The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees.  Those efforts damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies, and compromised our moral authority.  This report is a product of the Committee's inquiry into how those unfortunate results came about.

I'll keep my eye out for the full report and post it when available.

SDS