Presbyterian Pastor Speaks About Torture Report

The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee will  vote soon on whether to release a long-awaited report detailing the country's use of torture following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, says Rev. Richard Killmer, the recently retired executive director of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT).

Speaking this week to a luncheon group at the Grand Rapids, Mich. office of the CRC, Killmer said he believes the release of the 6,300-page document will show “the American people that our government approved and authorized the use of torture techniques that it condemns in other countries.”

Killmer is urging the Senate Intelligence Committee to make the exhaustive report, detailing use of such torture techniques as waterboarding and sleep deprivation, available to the public.

“This is not an easy topic ... I have talked to many torture victims who tell me that torture is such a humiliating and painful experience to go through," he said.

The CRC is a supporting member of NRCAT, an interfaith organization growing out of a 2006 conference of over 325 religious organizations committed to ending U.S.-sponsored torture in U.S. policy, practice, and culture.

Although the CRC backs NRCAT, it has not taken a stand on the issue of whether or not the Senate report should be released, said Peter Vander Meulen, coordinator of the CRC’s Office of Social Justice.

At the same time, he said, the CRC would like to see Congress eventually pass legislation that clarifies the issue of whether torture has any place at all in process of the interrogation.

“Theologically and ethically, there is really no argument for torture," he said.

Killmer, a Presbyterian pastor now living in Grand Rapids, says releasing the report would be an important way of shining a light on the issue of torture and help to “heal the wounds” created by how the U.S. reacted in the aftermath of 9/11.

It is unclear how the committee will vote on the report whose conclusions are strongly opposed by the C.I.A., he said.

In its response to the report, the C.I.A. challenges a number of the conclusions, questioning the accuracy of facts cited in the report.

Although the CIA says it agrees with several of the study's findings, it also says that there are significant errors in the report, which is based almost exclusively on documents and not on personal interviews. In addition, the C.I.A. says that practices cited in the report played an important role in keeping US citizens safe after 9/11.

Killmer disputes that claim, saying “there is no evidence backing up the rationale that we have heard from the United States that sometimes torture is needed to make ourselves safe.”

Often, he said, people lie under torture and simply tell their interrogators what they believe the interrogators want them to say.

But, above all, this is an issue that members of all faith traditions should be keenly interested and involved in addressing.

"Human beings are created in the likeness of God," said Killmer. “Torture is an evil, egregious violation of the dignity and worth of every human being."