The US Didn’t “Torture Some Folks”

 In response to a question last Friday about the recently completed Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA enhanced interrogation program, President Obama said:

“In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, we did some things that were wrong. We did a whole lot of things that were right, but we tortured some folks. We did things that were contrary to our values.”

This is another fatuous and damaging comment by our Commander-in Chief on U.S. national security.  The enhanced interrogation program was not torture, was briefed to Democratic Congressional leaders, and was cleared by the Justice Department.  Mr Obama has been in office for five and a half years now and he’s still apologizing for past Americans policies that were legal and carried out to defend our country.

The President’s sophomoric statement that the enhanced interrogation program was used against “some folks” implies the U.S. tortured innocent suspects, maybe Americans.  These were not “folks” — they were al Qaeda suspects who were interrogated to obtain information on imminent terrorist attacks.  Several former officials, including former CIA Director Michael Hayden and former CIA General Counsel John Rizzo, stand behind the usefulness of this program as a tool that stopped terrorist attacks.

The world weighs the words of an American president very carefully.  When our president makes careless comments such as laying down red lines for U.S. adversaries that he later ignores and says the U.S. “tortured some folks,” he is undermining both his credibility and that of the United States.