After 9/11, when terrorist plots seemed to be everywhere, the CIA claimed that its enhanced interrogation techniques had helped to thwart a number of plots.
“The CIA used these examples to claim that its enhanced interrogation techniques were not only effective, but also necessary to acquire ‘otherwise unavailable’ actionable intelligence that ‘saved lives,’ ” the report said.
However, the Senate committee found this was not the case. In reviewing 20 of the “most frequent and prominent” examples of such thwarted plots, it found that in some cases there was “no relationship between the cited counterterrorism success and any information provided by detainees during or after the use” of torture.
In the remaining cases, according to the report, the CIA said that the intelligence was the result of enhanced interrogation techniques when it was not. This included cases when the CIA obtained the information prior to the use of these techniques.
