CIA Risks Losing Intelligence Sources Over Torture Report: Expert

The president of an Afghanistan development organization can dissuade potential informants from assisting the US in future because of the fear they'll be tortured and abused.

WASHINGTON, December 12 (Sputnik) — The US Senate intelligence report that exposed brutal CIA interrogation techniques, including the torture of the agency's own sources, could dissuade potential informants from assisting the United States in the future, the president of an Afghanistan development organization told Sputnik on Friday.

"Now many Afghans, and potential sources in other countries, are unlikely to come forward to work with US intelligence as informants for fear they'll be tortured and abused," the President of the New World Strategies Coalition Inc., Khalil Nouri, said.

Nouri, who worked with the intelligence community on the ground in Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11, was baffled as to how the CIA could display such negligence and commit such "unthinkable atrocious acts."

"Perhaps they thought the informants were double agents — but, obviously, they were wrong," Nouri said.

Nouri warned that if the CIA does not adequately foster these willing sources, they will lack reliable information to protect American interests.

"If they fail to treat them [sources] properly, no one in the intelligence community will know what's brewing and won't be able to prevent the next catastrophe," Nouri added.

The Afghan native, who now lives in the United States, has been trying for decades to help bring peace to his homeland. He fears the report has caused a trust gap to widen between Afghans and US intelligence.

"It'll take years to gain the trust of Afghans due to the damage from this report," Nouri said. "It all depends on how the US will treat its new informants."

According to the Senate report, the CIA shackled two detainees for 24 hours and subjected them to "sleep deprivation and dietary manipulation," before CIA Headquarters confirmed the men were actually sources. In fact, the two detainees tried to contact the CIA on multiple occasions prior to their detention to provide intelligence "of what they believed were pending al-Qaeda terrorist attacks."

The report explained that, "the messages they had sent to the CIA were not translated until after the detainees were subjected to the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques." However, even after the CIA discovered that the two detainees should not have been in custody, the duo was still held for additional months before being released.

Information regarding the country where the interrogations took place and the nationality of the detainees were redacted from the report. A Senate Intelligence committee spokesperson told Sputnik that information not provided in the released report "remains classified, including countries where interrogations took place and details of the detainees."

The Senate Intelligence Committee released on December 10 a summary report that included over 500 pages of the detailed investigation into the CIA interrogation techniques that were used on alleged al-Qaeda agents, following the 9/11 attacks on Washington and New York.