A CIA Official Explains All

Some of our hi-jinks may have gotten out of hand

Okay, look, mistakes were made.  I'm the first to admit that.  For example, the number of actual detainees might have been under-reported.  The original report was "less than 100."  Now it turns out, there were 119 detainees.  Okay, so we miscounted.  So sue us.  Oh, wait a minute, you can't sue us.  We're the CIA.  The fact is, "less than 100" and "119" are very similar numbers.  Ask yourself: "Is 119 more or less than 100?"  You had to think about it, didn't you?  That's the whole point.

And then, admittedly, maybe a few of those were wrongfully detained.  Maybe as many as 26.  When you look at it mathematically, how many is 26 out of a hundred anyway?  Less than 10%.  That's not bad, really.  And if you subtract 26 from 119, you get - guess what?  81.  That's less than a hundred.  No one can argue with that.  That means we detained less than a hundred people rightfully.  So we were right all along.  But no one ever mentions that.

And yes, in some cases maybe we started enhancing the interrogation techniques before we saw if the detainee would cooperate.  But look, if you give detainees a chance to cooperate, then you may never get to use enhanced interrogation techniques at all.

And yes, some of the interrogation techniques might have been a little more enhanced than we let on.  For example, in addition to water-boarding, we may have threatened detainees' families and done some medically unnecessary rectal feeding.  Frankly, though, this has all been taken out of context.  First of all, threats to detainees' families.  Clearly, when interrogators said they would sexually abuse or cut the throat of a detainee's mother, we were only kidding.  Everyone in the room could tell it was a joke.  We felt it would be good to lighten the mood.  Admittedly, in retrospect, that particular joke may have been in poor taste.  As for medically unnecessary rectal feedings, here's the thing.  None of us are doctors or medical experts; how are we supposed to know if rectal feedings are medically necessary or not?  We weren't going to take any chances with the precious health of our detainees.

Perhaps some over-enthusiastic officials might have linked classified information and misled the public about the effectiveness of enhanced interrogation.  But you have to look at it from our point of view.  What if we'd told the truth?  You'd have stopped us.  You'd have called us names, like "torturers" or "brutal" or "war criminals."  That sort of thing hurts.  We try to pretend it doesn't hurt, but it does.  It hurts.

You have to try to see it from our side.