‘US to face global protests over CIA torture report’

The US is sure to face protests both at home and abroad after the Senate intelligence committee published its report on the CIA’s use of torture on prisoners, Colonel Ann Wright told RT, saying the next step for Washington should be accountability.

The summary of the report was published on Tuesday after four years of investigation. The document lists such torture techniques as waterboarding, ice baths, sleep deprivation, threats of death and threats to detainees’ families as those used and approved by authorities.

The White House warned that releasing the report could provoke violence abroad.

READ MORE:Senate accuses CIA of torturing prisoners, overstepping legal boundaries

According to Wright, a retired diplomat, it will indeed cause a global backlash.

RT:The long-delayed report has finally been released. How big are its revelations?

Ann Wright: Well, we don’t know for sure how big they are because the majority of the reports you’ve mentioned is still being kept from us, the American people, and from the world at large. But certainly the executive summary of 500 pages detailed things that we as Americans are very ashamed of.

And the backlash as you mention – I was also a US diplomat, served 16 years as a US diplomat in places all over the world in US embassies, which now are beefing up their security. And it’s one of the things that, of course, when any program is initiated by the CIA or the military, they certainly are to think about the long term consequences if it’s found out about. Which now the CIA torture program is becoming more clear to us and there will be outrage around the world, I would think.

RT:We already knew about waterboarding and other torture tactics in Guantanamo. Now we know these brutal methods were used elsewhere in the world – in secret CIA prisons. What kind of international reaction should we expect?

AW: I would suspect that many embassies will have protesters out in front of them and I would think that right here in the United States that we will have some protests too. We’ve had them in the past in terms of trying to get accountability for our own government actions, actions that many of us feel have been criminal actions, that there were needs to be accountability for it. And just because the Senate issues this report, that’s one step in finding out a little more about it. But now the next step is accountability.

RT:Who will be held accountable at the CIA?

AW: Well, that’s the good point. And how far up will it go? Will it go to the director of the CIA? Will it go to the vice-president? The president? Will it go to the Department of Justice? To attorneys who change the law, really wrote the different law, and they need that Congress to pass in order to protect people who are already committing criminal acts.

RT:The full document remains classified. Do you think the summary that’s been published is enough?

AW: Never. No. We need to know the entire 6,000 pages. And we’re hoping the senator Mark Udall, who is leaving the Senate within a month, that maybe he will read the entire report on the floor of the US Senate, similar to what Senator Mike Gravel did for the Pentagon papers nearly 45 years ago.

RT:How damaging is this report to the CIA?

AW: I think this is a damning report to the CIA. It certainly shows criminal acts were being committed. And in order to prevent them happening in the future we definitely need to have a wider explanation, we need to see the entire 6,000 pages and their redacted parts, the parts that are marked out, they need to be come to the surface, so those who have committed these criminal acts can be held accountable.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.