Abu Ghraib, CIA black sites, waterboarding. All those became household terms during the Bush administration and the War on Terror. But we didn’t really know what was going on. The administration eventually admitted to “enhanced interrogation techniques.” And terrorists like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah may never go to trial because they were tortured.
Adam Driver as Daniel Jones in “The Report.” Photo credit: Amazon Studios
In 2014, after more than five years of exhaustive, painstaking research, the Senate Intelligence Committee (led by Senator Dianne Feinstein) finally revealed the findings of its so-called “torture report.” Feinstein said, “There are those who will seize on the report and say, ‘See what the Americans did?’ And they will try to use it to justify evil actions or incite more violence. We can’t prevent that. But history will judge us by our commitment to a just society, governed by law, and the willingness to face an ugly truth and say, ‘Never again.’ ”
The full report remains classified to this day. The release of it is dramatized in a new film called “The Report.”