While the declassified version of the report does not offer a full summation of the program’s costs—and the US intelligence community’s $53 billion black budget remains largely secret, despite Edward Snowden’s leaks—we now have evidence of at least $480 million in funding. You have to pay for interrogators who are willing to cross the line. The report notes that contractors trained in “enhanced interrogation techniques” were paid $1,800 a day, four times as much as interrogators who didn’t use those techniques. The same interrogators were paid to violently interrogate the prisoners, evaluate their psychological state and recommend further use of the techniques—a significant conflict of interest. Contractors made up 85% of the CIA staff working on this program, including one firm that receive an $180 million contract that was eventually terminated—but not before the firm collected $80 million. After a detainee died from hypothermia caused by a night spent partially naked in a cold concrete cell, the supervising CIA agent received a $2,500 cash bonus for “consistently superior work.”
Posted on: Wed, 10 Dec 2014 03:36:13 +0000
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