Interrogation Techniques | featured news

CIA director Leon Panetta says it's almost as if former vice president Dick Cheney would like to see another attack on the United States to prove he is right in criticizing President Barack Obama for abandoning the "harsh interrogation" of terrorism suspects.

The agency fears that public scrutiny and new restrictions will hinder future interrogations.

Top Republicans are demanding an apology from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi or proof to back her claim that the CIA misled Congress about the use of harsh interrogation tactics.

Congressional Republicans are rushing to defend the CIA after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused the spy agency of misleading ...

In a reversal, President Barack Obama said on Wednesday he would fight the release of dozens of photographs showing the abuse of terrorism suspects, over concern the images could ignite a backlash against U.S. troops.

A congressional hearing on terrorism-era interrogation practices has opened with harsh partisan recriminations.

Records do little to settle a dispute over whether the speaker of the House knew in 2002 that waterboarding had already been used against one prisoner.

In late 2007, there was the first crack of daylight into the government's use of waterboarding during interrogations of Al Qaeda detainees. On Dec. 10, John Kiriakou, a former C.I.A. officer who had participated in the capture of the suspected terrorist Abu Zubaydah in Pakistan in 2002, appeared on ABC News to say that while he considered waterboarding a form of torture, the technique worked and yielded results very quickly.

Barack Obama's performance in the first 100 days of his presidency draws strong public approval in a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, but there is decidedly less support for his recent decision to release previously secret government memos on the interrogation of terrorism suspects, an initiative that reveals deep partisan fissures.

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Current and former U.S. officials say the failure to carefully examine the value of 'enhanced' methods like waterboarding -- despite calls to do so as early as 2003 -- was part of a broader trend.

The CIA used an arsenal of severe interrogation techniques on alleged Al Qaeda prisoners for nearly seven years without ever seeking a rigorous assessment of whether the methods were effective or necessary, according to current and former U.S.