On the recordNovember 30, 2011
I appreciate the question from the Senator from Connecticut. Absolutely, as the Senator pointed out, the Army Field Manual was not created for this purpose. As he mentioned, the high- value detainee interrogation group is a group consisting of the CIA, FBI, and Defense Intelligence Agency, designed to interrogate the worst terrorists, who are likely to have valuable information about future attacks and information we need to protect our country. To address this problem, we drafted the amendment through this authorization that would allow members of the intelligence community, who are assigned to or in support of the high-value interrogation group, to utilize interrogation techniques that are consistent with our laws and values. Our amendment would ask the Secretary of Defense, working with the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General, to develop a classified annex to the Army Field Manual that terrorists could not see. Unfortunately, now they can go on the Internet and look at the techniques. It classifies that the Army Field Manual would provide interrogation techniques that would be used by that important select group of intelligence-gathering professionals, to allow them to have for their use the techniques they need to gather information and protect our country.
