The Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture: Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program

This was a particularly difficult book, partly due to the subject matter (CIA torture), and partly due to the fact that so much of the material has been heavily redacted. So many pages have as many words blacked-out as not. So the continuity of the text is frequently lost. Even without that limitation, the committee study isn't written as a novel, but rather a series of subjects which vary frequently, so there isn't much continuity to begin with.

With that said, the information in the book is still important to review. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, and the uncertainty of the times, those in charge took the approach that they needed to determine if other attacks were being planned. Sometimes, and too often if you read this book, show more lines were crossed in trying to obtain intelligence from captives. Those in charge maintain that the "enhanced interrogation techniques" did not constitute "torture", and that the methods used produced important intelligence which prevented other attacks. This book shows the flaws in that argument.

Personally, I think Ali Soufan's book, "The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against Al-Qaeda" is a much more readable book detailing the failings of torture, but both books come to the same conclusion, i.e., we got no actionable intelligence by means of torture, and that the conventional interrogation methods are not just more humane, but also more effective. show less