Intelligence Elites and Public Accountability by Vian Bakir

Author:Vian Bakir [Bakir, Vian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Military, General
ISBN: 9781351388955
Google: zSFWDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-04-17T05:05:14+00:00

5 The torture-intelligence issue

Relationships of influence during journalism-as-usual

Introduction

In this chapter I examine to what extent civil society holds intelligence elites publicly accountable during a long period of journalism-as-usual, namely, a period where there are no whistleblowers on the issue in question. My empirical focus is the torture-intelligence issue. My analytical lenses are the strategies and techniques of influence developed in Chapter 2, and the benchmark of Accountability Demands developed in Chapter 3. I start by presenting a brief history of the George W. Bush administration’s Detention and Interrogation Program (2001–2009) and intelligence elite accountability. I then move on to the main focus: the Obama administration’s attempted political closure of the torture-intelligence issue across 2009–2015, and civil society’s response.

I focus on US intelligence elite strategies of influence from 2009, when President Barack Obama took office and publicly renounced the Detention and Interrogation Program, to 2014, when the Executive Summary of the US Senate Intelligence Committee Committee study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s detention and interrogation program (variously called the SSCI (Senate Select Committee on Intelligence) Report or the Torture Report) was partially declassified. Based on a review of over six million pages of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and other records, some on the Senate Intelligence Committee saw the SSCI report as one of the most significant examples of oversight in the Senate’s history. However, it is a controversial study that most Republicans viewed as politicised. I unearth three phases of Obama intelligence elite strategies of influence regarding the torture-intelligence issue. The first phase saw an attempt to re-establish narrative control and move on; the second comprised an official silence regularly punctured with claims but no evidence; and the third consisted of an information glut of misdirection as the SSCI report was delivered to the public.

The SSCI report generated a large amount of public discourse from civil society on the Detention and Interrogation Program. Utilising the benchmark of Accountability Demands developed in Chapter 3, I analyse the ability of civil society (the press, non-governmental organisations (NGOs)/activist groups/think tanks and citizens) to penetrate and resist intelligence elite strategies of influence. I focus upon several areas from civil society with the aim of examining best-case scenarios for holding intelligence elites accountable, and thereby providing a tough test of intelligence elites’ influence. The first test is longitudinal analysis (2009–2015) of coverage of the SSCI report by Washington policy-makers’ newspaper of record, the Washington Post (a news outlet with a history of challenging intelligence elite discourse, including on the Detention and Interrogation Program). The second test is cross-sectional analysis of reaction to the SSCI report from the Post and social media (Twitter) on declassification day in the information glut of misdirection phase. This allows understanding of the reach of intelligence elites in an unruly media environment that hosts a diverse range of press genres (mainstream, investigative, collaborative and citizen journalism) from the USA and internationally, as well as posts from NGOs/activist groups/think tanks and citizens. Together, these elements address the central question: does contemporary civil society

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