Udall Urged to Disclose Full Torture Report

MEMORANDUM FOR: Senator Mark Udall

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

SUBJECT: Stopping Torture

We, the undersigned are veteran intelligence officers with a combined total of over 300 years of experience in intelligence work. We send you this open letter at what seems to be the last minute simply because we had been hoping we would not have to.

Your rhetoric against torture and in defense of the Constitution has been strong, but we now sense a white flag beneath it. We fear you intend to silently steal away, and thus deny the American people their last best chance to learn what they need to know about the record of CIA torture.

We had been encouraged by your Dec. 10 speech on the Senate floor, in which you referred to the release of the Executive Summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee's Study on CIA torture the previous day and said: "My goal is to ensure the full truth comes out about this grim time in the history of the CIA and our nation, so that neither the CIA nor any future administration repeats the grievous mistake this important oversight work reveals." (our emphasis)

Very quickly, though, your goal became fuzzier. When Scott Raab of Esquire Magazine asked you right after your speech, "Do you think the remaining 6,000 or so pages will become public?" You answered: "I do. It's my fervent hope that they will be declassified. I will continue to call for the entire report to be declassified. The details are important ... the entire report ought to be released."

With all due respect, Senator, exactly who do you think is going to do that, if not you? Was your "goal to ensure the full truth comes out" more rhetoric than reality? We are extremely disappointed at your apparent readiness to throw in the towel.

You had told Raab on Nov. 21, "What happened [the torture, lying, and cover-up] broke faith with the Constitution," adding, "There are some that would like this report [the Senate Intelligence Committee Study] never to see the light of day. There are some that are running out the clock." Clearly, you are on to their game. Are you going to let the clock run out, when what we actually need is a full-court press?

A Fine Floor Speech

You called, again, for CIA Director John Brennan to resign, while at the same time noting that President Obama has expressed full confidence in him and has "demonstrated that trust by making no effort at all to rein him in." In your words, the CIA keeps "posing impediments or obstacles" to full disclosure of its "barbaric program" of torture. And you made light of Obama's merely stating, "Hopefully, we don't do it again in the future."

"That's not good enough," you added, and of course you are right. Finally, you complain:

"If there's no real leadership from the White House helping the public understand that the CIA's torture program wasn't necessary and didn't save lives or disrupt terrorist plots, then what's to stop the next White House and CIA director from supporting torture? ...

"The CIA has lied to its overseers and the public, destroyed and tried to hold back evidence, spied on the Senate, made false charges against our staff, and lied about torture and the results of torture. And no one has been held to account. " There are right now people serving at high-level positions at the agency who approved, directed, or committed acts related to the CIA's detention and interrogation program."

QED -- as you have demonstrated -- there is no "real leadership" in the White House on this transcendentally important issue.

Thus, it struck us as disingenuous to finish, as you do, with a glaring non sequitur. You call on our timid President to "purge his administration" of a CIA director in whom he says he has "full confidence," together with the torture alumni and alumnae still tenaciously protected by the same director.