Panel to release findings on interrogations

May 14, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

Chicago Tribune

WASHINGTON

Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee expect to release findings this summer from an 18-month investigation into the CIA’s interrogation of terrorism suspects, a review that could provide some clarity on whether harsh techniques — or even torture — played a role in helping the CIA find Osama bin Laden.

The public is being treated to a dizzying back and forth between current and former U.S. officials — some with direct knowledge, some without — making claims they can neither prove nor disprove since classified information is involved.

Senate staffers, by contrast, have examined some 5 million pages of emails, cables and other classified materials that likely will shed light on which detainees said what and under what conditions.

Separately, U.S. officials have been granted access to bin Laden’s three widows, who were detained by Pakistani security forces after Navy SEALs killed bin Laden on May 2 and left handcuffed at the compound in Abbottabad.

White House spokesman Jay Carney declined to say who was questioning the women or if they were cooperating. Another official said it is unimaginable that anyone other than CIA officers are conducting the interviews.

After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the CIA carried out interrogations at a network of now-closed secret prisons.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who chairs the intelligence committee, said Thursday that the detainee who gave the CIA its best understanding of the courier who ultimately led to bin Laden — a detainee identified by U.S. officials as Hassan Ghul — did so before he was subject to unspecified harsh techniques at a CIA site in Poland.

Feinstein knows this, she explained, because her staff has examined records documenting the CIA interrogations — records that few others have been able to examine.

Her assertion contradicts several former officials from President George W. Bush’s administration who have suggested that Ghul gave help only after rough treatment. Those claims have fueled the belief that so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques,” which President Barack Obama banned after he took office, were instrumental in finding bin Laden.