A former CIA contractor who helped design a harsh interrogation program following the the Sept. 11 attacks sought Friday to minimize the severity of techniques used on the men facing war crimes charges for their alleged roles in the plot.
An architect of the brutal CIA interrogation and detention program developed after the Sept. 11 attacks defended the agency and its practices on Tuesday as those techniques become the focus of an effort to dismiss key evidence against five men charged in the terrorist plot.
Torture erodes the rule of law as it burns away the protections we treat as sacrosanct in our American system of justice, says the author of this commentary.
Caesar Civitella was an amazing character and, when I knew him, one of a dwindling number of living veterans of the Office of Strategic Services. We spent many hours talking about his exploits, like dropping into France to help the Maquis, or traipsing around Italy with a bunch of gold, searching for Mussolini.