By Jason Leopold | Consortiumnews.com, June 18, 2009
President Barack Obama’s promise of a more open government faces a new test this week as his administration weighs whether to release details of a May 2004 internal CIA report about the agency’s use of torture, including how at least three detainees were killed in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The secret findings of CIA Inspector General John Helgerson led to eight criminal referrals to the Justice Department for homicide and other misconduct, but those cases languished as Vice President Dick Cheney reportedly intervened to constrain Helgerson’s inquiries.
Heavily redacted portions of Helgerson’s report were released to the American Civil Liberties Union in May 2008 in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, but the ACLU appealed the Bush administration’s extensive deletions and the Obama administration agreed to respond to that appeal by Friday.
Peace and Justice Post 
Ex-CIA official John Helgerson says agents lost control after torture go-ahead
August 26, 2009Times Online/UK, August 26, 2009
John Helgerson, the former inspector-general of the CIA, also told The Times that the Obama Administration had cut key passages of his report out of the released version, a decision he found “puzzling”.
Mr Helgerson told The Times that the CIA had given assurances to the Justice Department that although the techniques would be used more than once, repetition would “not be substantial”.
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Tags:Abu Zubaydah, “black site” prisons, Bush regime, CIA interrogators, John Helgerson, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, report on CIA interrogations, waterboarding
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