Did two questions arise in your mind when you read the following two lines (which have now wormed their way into most media discussions of the report on CIA torture by the Senate Intelligence Committee)?
The report has some intrinsic limitations because it did not involve direct interviews of CIA officials, contract personnel, or other Executive branch personnel. It also, unfortunately, did not include the participation of the staff of Republican Committee members.
The 2 questions in my mind are:
1. Why?
and
2. Why not?
The two lines quoted above are an extract from last week's statement by Republican Maine Senator Susan Collins (jointly with Independent Maine Senator Angus King), and its precise choice of words can be most clearly understood as part of Collins’ longstanding efforts to advance her “primary goal” which
is to “ensure that the report remains a tool for meaningful oversight and that it does not become a political issue that can be used by either party,” according to a staffer in her office.
Despite Collins' evasive wording, we already know (and the Collins/King statement is dishonest in trying to obscure) the answer to why:
It … did not include the participation of the staff of Republican Committee members.
The answer, which was
disclosed last month by ranking Republican committee member Saxby Chambliss:
Former Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.), who was ranking member on the Intelligence Committee, had ordered the Republicans and their aides not to take part in the panel’s review, Chambliss later said.
That leaves the second question, which is why the investigation, in Collins' similarly evasive-looking wording:
did not involve direct interviews of CIA officials, contract personnel, or other Executive branch personnel.
The implied answer that seems to be insinuating itself into media coverage is along the lines of
'sloppy government process of course produced non-authoritative report which of course is no more credible than the CIA's and Republicans' [of course fact-free] rebuttals'.
Of course if this was the true answer, then Collins would have stated it expressly and loudly. So the ongoing debate, on torture, accountability and Senate oversight power, would be healthier if truer answers could be found, supported with evidence, and publicized.
I can think of three possible answers (which could all be true):
1. Perhaps the committee’s limited resources (limited intentionally by Republican committee members’ boycott and other resistance) were fully stretched by coping with the “document dump” received from the CIA “without any index, without any organizational structure”.
2. In view of the well-established practice of all such players to lie about, and/or refuse to comment on, any illegal or embarrassing activities, at least until those activities have been proven by a document held in the hand of the questioner, perhaps the committee’s investigators believed (probably correctly) that they could not learn anything useful through that type of direct interview.
3. Perhaps many of these players were resisting or avoiding being interviewed, or would clearly have done so if interviews were requested.
CROWD-SOURCING? If any Kossacks are able to find and post evidence of this type of resistance or evasion, this would seem useful in order to broaden the public's understanding.