The CIA and the Question of Torture: Reading the Senate Report on CIA Detention and Interrogation

Event Details

With the release by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence of a major study of the CIA’s detention and interrogation practices, Americans have been forced to confront some disturbing facts. It is clear that practices most Americans would condemn have been used in secret by our intelligence agencies to pursue information in America’s on-going conflict with radical Islam. To debate the significance of the Senate’s findings and to place them into broad historical context, the GREAT ISSUES Series will host a public conversation with RICHARD IMMERMAN, FREDERICK HITZ, and BENJAMIN WITTES, three experts on the matter. 

Public seating will be available on a first come, first serve basis. Lunch will be available by RSVP only and will be served before the roundtable at 12:15 p.m. For lunch, please RSVP by Tuesday, February 17 to mc-reservations@eservices.virginia.edu.

Click here to read the Executive Summary of the Senate report on the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program. 

RICHARD IMMERMAN is the Edward J. Buthusiem Family Distinguished Faculty Fellow in History and the Marvin Wachman Director of the Center for the Study of Force and Diplomacy at Temple University, and the Francis W. DeSerio Chair of Strategic Intelligence at the US Army War College. He formerly served as assistant deputy director of National Intelligence for Analytic Integrity and standards and analytic ombudsman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. His books include The Hidden Hand: A Brief History of the CIA, The Central Intelligence Agency: Security Under Scrutiny, Empire for Liberty: A History of American Imperialism from Benjamin Franklin to Paul Wolfowitz, and The CIA in Guatemala: The Foreign Policy of Intervention.

FREDERICK P. HITZ has held positions with the CIA and the Departments of State, Defense, and Energy. Along with serving as a managing partner of the law firm of Schwabe, Williamson and Wyatt from 1982 to 1990, Mr. Hitz was appointed the CIA's first statutory Inspector General by George H.W. Bush. He is an adjunct professor at the University of Virginia School of Law and a senior lecturer at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University, and is the author of The Great Game: The Myths and Reality of Espionage and Why Spy? Espionage in an Age of Uncertainty.

BENJAMIN WITTES is a senior fellow in Governance Studies at The Brookings Institution, a member of the Hoover Institution's Task Force on National Security and Law, and the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Lawfare blog. He has served as an editorial writer for The Washington Post and a reporter and editor at Legal Times. His books include Detention and Denial: The Case for Candor After Guantanamo, Law and the Long War: The Future of Justice in the Age of Terror, and Legislating the War on Terror: An Agenda for Reform.