The Central Intelligence Agency used tough interrogation techniques on suspected Al-Qaeda prisoners for nearly seven years without ever seeking a serious assessment of the effectiveness of its methods, The Los Angeles Times reported.
Citing current and former US officials familiar with the matter, the newspaper said on its website late on Saturday that the failure to conduct a comprehensive examination occurred despite calls to do so as early as 2003.
That year, the CIA inspector general circulated drafts of a report that raised deep concerns about waterboarding and other methods, the paper said.
According to The Times, the report described in general terms the volume of intelligence the interrogation program was producing.
But neither this nor other audits examined the effectiveness of interrogation techniques in detail, or sought to scrutinize assertions by CIA counter-terrorism officials that enhanced interrogation methods were essential to the program's results, the paper noted.
One report by a former government official, who was not an interrogation expert, was about 10 pages long and amounted to a glowing review of interrogation efforts, The Times said.
"Nobody with expertise or experience in interrogation ever took a rigorous, systematic review of the various techniques -- enhanced or otherwise -- to see what resulted in the best information," the paper quoted one unnamed senior US intelligence official as saying.
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