Hutchinson: '13 findings similar

5 Arkansans in U.S. Capitol say report’s release a mistake

Arkansas Gov.-elect Asa Hutchinson said that a U.S. Senate report on CIA interrogation techniques after Sept. 11, 2001, is very similar to the findings released in 2013 by a bipartisan task force he led.
Arkansas Gov.-elect Asa Hutchinson said that a U.S. Senate report on CIA interrogation techniques after Sept. 11, 2001, is very similar to the findings released in 2013 by a bipartisan task force he led.

WASHINGTON -- Arkansas Gov.-elect Asa Hutchinson said Tuesday that a U.S. Senate report on CIA interrogation techniques after Sept. 11, 2001, is very similar to the findings released in 2013 by a bipartisan task force he led.



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U.S. Sen.-elect Tom Cotton (shown right) said the document was “full of lies.”

But members of Arkansas' congressional delegation said the report shouldn't have been released. U.S. Sen.-elect Tom Cotton said the document was "full of lies."

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., released the committee's report on abuses within the agency's interrogation program Tuesday after years of wrangling with the intelligence community and President Barack Obama's administration about how much information to retract.

Hutchinson served in Congress and was also under secretary for border and transportation security at the Department of Homeland Security during President George W. Bush's administration.

He also spent two years as co-chairman of the bipartisan The Constitution Project's Task Force on Detainee Treatment, which in April 2013 released a 602-page report that said there is no evidence that the United States gained valuable intelligence information by torturing suspects. It also dismissed high-ranking Bush administration officials' denials that torture occurred.

Nothing he read about the Senate report Tuesday was shocking or unexpected, Hutchinson said.

"I don't see anything that really has not been disclosed previously," he said. "This simply documents what we've really already known intuitively."

To prepare its report, Hutchinson's task force interviewed more than 100 people in the United States, Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries. Hutchinson interviewed three former detainees of the Guantanamo Bay detention center in April 2012.

When the task force released its report, it recommended the Senate report be made public, as long as it was safe to do so, he said.

"We recognized the national security issues that were involved, and we left that to the discretion of the president," he said.

He said the United States needs to learn from its history and to be transparent.

"This report has a stamp of authority and breadth to it that a private-sector report cannot accomplish," Hutchinson said. "This report had access to classified information; it had access to all the CIA documents so its much more authoritative. ... But it is certainly consistent with [the task force report.]"

He said it was interesting that the committee found that though the CIA knew that the interrogation methods didn't produce reliable information, it used them anyway.

"It went against their own studies ... and their own review of those techniques," he said.

The Republican members of Arkansas' delegation panned the release as politically motivated and said it would ultimately hurt the country. U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor was not available for comment.

Cotton, a U.S. representative from Dardanelle, called the report a "pure, partisan political maneuver" designed to distract people from a House committee hearing on health care that was expected to be embarrassing for Democrats and Obama. Cotton is a former Army captain who served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"It's a one-sided partisan report that didn't even interview the people involved, and that will cost American lives overseas now and in the future," Cotton said. "It's full of lies."

He said some techniques in the report are used to train service members and "if an American soldier volunteers to undergo it, it's not torture," he said.

Cotton called the committee report irresponsible.

"Other countries work in decades when it comes to trusting the United States, not in two-year election cycles or six-year senate terms, and we are going to find ourselves friendless in the world, in part because of this report, and with an intelligence service that doesn't trust its elected leaders," Cotton said.

U.S. Rep. Steve Womack, a former Army National Guard colonel from Rogers, said in a statement that releasing the information was unwise.

"The airing of our dirty laundry by the Senate Intelligence Committee shows naivete and troubles me. While I believe we should continually evaluate the methods we use to gather intelligence, focusing on our ethics and the efficacy of tactics, I believe this is best taken care of in a manner that does not create harmful scenarios for our brave patriots serving overseas," he said.

U.S. Rep. Rick Crawford, a former U.S. Army bomb-disposal technician from Jonesboro, said releasing the report was a mistake.

"This is something that should be behind closed doors and a discussion that should be had away from the public forum so that we don't imperil our operators that are serving us right now -- not only men and women in the CIA, but our military who rely on information that they provide them," Crawford said.

U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin, a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve who lives in Little Rock, said he is worried about releasing information while the country is still fighting in the Middle East.

"There are a lot of disputed, heavily disputed portions, and it is not the only side of the story," Griffin said. "But my first concern is: What information are we releasing at this time while we are in the middle of this war? Are we putting Americans at risk because we are releasing this?"

U.S. Sen. John Boozman of Rogers said in the statement that the country walks a fine line as it works to protect its citizens.

"Whether we crossed that line is a fair discussion we should have, but it needs to be done in an honest way. To do this in a very political and public manner is a disservice to our intelligence community and puts the safety of Americans overseas at great risk," he said.

A section on 12/10/2014

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