Executive Branch
CIA Rejects Request By Cheney to Declassify Two Interrogation Documents
Posted May 14, 2009, 02:19 pm CST
By Martha Neil
Citing pending litigation under the Freedom of Information Act, the CIA has declined a request by Richard Cheney to declassify two documents that the former vice president contends would show that controversial interrogation methods used by the CIA after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks did elicit useful information.
Critics argue that waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques are not only unlawful but are also unlikely to obtain reliable information. Meanwhile, the current director of national intelligence in the Obama administration, Dennis Blair, says such interrogations produced valuable leads but in the end were more harmful than helpful, reports the Washington Post in an article about the CIA's documents denial in a letter today.
"A document is excluded from mandatory declassification review if that document contains information that is the subject of litigation," the CIA letter states. It was sent to the National Archives and Records Administration, to which Cheney made a formal request on March 31 that the documents be released.
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