DNI Confirmation Hearing: No Interrogation Loopholes For CIA

Speaking to the point in my last post, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) asked Blair if his point to Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.) about withholding some interrogation techniques from public release was meant to circumvent the new uniform standards for interrogation. Or did it mean compliance with “more or less the design of the Army field manual right now,” where some specificity on implementing the interrogation techniques is all that’s withheld for operational security. “Is that what you intended by your response?”

Blair: “The general pattern I have in mind [is that], the information more widely available is more general than [that] used against adversaries … We have to assure the American people we are acting correctly but we don’t want to provide intelligence support to those trying to come after us.”

But it’s not creating a loophole for non-Geneva compliant CIA interrogation techniques? “No, sir. Not saying ‘Here’s the document, and then, just kidding, here’s the real stuff.”