The historic drop in crude-oil prices is poised to give a clear boost to President Barack Obama both in the US and abroad.

"Even President Barack Obama likely would agree that 2014 has been a tough year for him—and he doubtless would welcome a sign that he will catch a break or two in 2015," Gerald Seib, the Washington bureau chief of The Wall Street Journal, wrote on Monday. "Well, here’s one: Low oil prices ... are shaping up as a win-win for the president."

Earlier on Monday, the price of both Brent and WTI crude hit a five-year low. Prices have fallen more than 30% since peaking in June, and the decline has accelerated since OPEC declined to cut production at its November meeting. Declining global demand and rising US production have led to a glut in supply this year.

Seib argued this price drop has both domestic and international benefits for the Obama administration. High gasoline prices, which result from high oil prices, are widely detested among American consumers. And many of the countries hurt by low oil prices could be on a who's-who list of US geopolitical foes.

"It's hard to imagine a single development that carries so many upsides and so few downsides. The domestic economic benefits are obvious," Seib wrote. "It just happens that the countries hurt most by the oil-price decline are on the current U.S. naughty list, from Iran and Syria to Russia and Venezuela. Meanwhile, many obvious economic and strategic beneficiaries—Jordan, Egypt, Israel and Japan among them—are on the nice list."

A senior administration official told the Journal the impact would be "very profound" in Russia, an oil exporter that has repeatedly clashed with the US over its recent annexation of Ukrainian territory.

"They may be heading into a recession," the official remarked, suggesting the Russian government may need to curtail its financial support for Ukrainian separatists. "There are going to have to be tradeoffs."

Seib said Obama would also see benefits in the Middle East, where the White House is hoping to negotiate a deal with Iran to rein in its nuclear program in exchange for ending economic sanctions. The jihadists of the Islamic State, or ISIS, also use oil sales to partially self-fund their military in Iraq and Syria.

"Iran’s predicament is similar and, from the American point of view, particularly well timed," Seib wrote. "The Obama administration has perhaps three months to pressure Iran into a long-term deal restricting its nuclear program. Only economic pressure has brought such a deal into view, and the pinch on Iranian oil revenues now will escalate the pressure at precisely the right time."

NOW WATCH — T. Boone Pickens' Strict Morning Routine Will Inspire You To Plan Your Days Better

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In this excerpt from Why We Lost: A General's Inside Account of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, retired 3-star Army Lieutenant General Daniel Bolger, who led NATO training mission in Afghanistan from 2011 to 2013, describes the root cause of the military’s failure in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

I am a United States Army general, and I lost the Global War on Terrorism.

It’s like Alcoholics Anonymous; step one is admitting you have a problem.

Well, I have a problem.

So do my peers.

And thanks to our problem, now all of America has a problem, to wit: two lost campaigns and a war gone awry.

We should have known this one was going to go bad when we couldn’t even settle on a name. In the wake of the horrific al-Qaeda attacks on September 11, 2001, we tried out various labels.

The guys in the Pentagon basement at first offered Operation Infinite Justice, which sounded fine, both almighty and righteous. Then various handwringers noted that it might upset the Muslims.

These were presumably different kinds of followers of Islam than the nineteen zealots who had just slaughtered thousands of our fellow citizens. Well, better incoherent than insensitive, I guess.

So we settled on Operation Enduring Freedom. Our efforts in Afghanistan certainly lived up to the “enduring” part, dragging out longer than the ten-year Trojan War as we desperately tried to impose “freedom” on surly Pashtuns.

Still, that Enduring Freedom idea reflected the preferred brand. Few could have been much surprised when, in 2003, the next major campaign in the ill-named war drew the title Operation Iraqi Freedom.

As in World War II, the Iraq intervention was seen, rightly, as yet another theater in what the military formally called the Global War on Terrorism. Like many veterans, I earned campaign ribbons with that designation.

I lost eighty men and women under my charge; more than three times that number were wounded. Those sad losses are, all my fault.

We waged a Global War on Terrorism against enemies referred to vaguely as terrorists, cowards, evildoers, and extremists. Although those descriptions were rather generic, somehow we always ended up going after the same old bunch of Islamists.

Our opponents had no illusions about who our targets were, even if some of us did.

This GWOT sputtered along for years, with me in it, along with many others much more capable, brave, and distinguished.

I was never the overall commander in either Afghanistan or Iraq. You’d find me lower down on the food chain, but high enough.

I commanded a one-star advisory team in Iraq in 2005–06, an Army division (about 20,000 soldiers) in Baghdad in 2009–10, and a three-star advisory organization in Afghanistan in 2011–13. 

I was present when key decisions were made, delayed, or avoided. I made, delayed, or avoided a few myself. I got out on the ground a lot with small units as we patrolled and raided.

Sometimes, I communed with the strategic-headquarters types in the morning and at sunset grubbed through a village with a rifle platoon.

Now and then, Iraqi and Afghan insurgents tried to kill me. By the enemy’s hand, abetted by my ignorance, my arrogance, and the inexorable fortunes of war, I lost eighty men and women under my charge; more than three times that number were wounded.

Those sad losses are, to borrow the words of Robert E. Lee on that awful third day at Gettysburg, all my fault.

What went wrong squandered the bravery, sweat, and blood of these fine Americans. Our primary failing in the war involved generalship. If you prefer the war-college lexicon, we — guys like me — demonstrated poor strategic and operational leadership.

For soldiers, strategy and operational art translate to “the big picture” (your goal) and “the plan” (how you get there). We got both wrong, the latter more than the former.

Some might blame the elected and appointed civilian leaders. There’s enough fault to go around, and in this telling, the suits will get their share. But I know better, and so do the rest of the generals. We have been trained and educated all our lives on how to fight and win. This was our war to lose, and we did.

We should have known better. In the military schools, like West Point, Fort Leavenworth, Quantico, and Carlisle Barracks, soldiers study the work of the great thinkers who have wrestled with winning wars across the ages. Along with Thucydides, Julius Caesar, and Carl von Clausewitz, the instructors introduce the ancient wisdom of Sun Tzu, the Chinese general and theorist who penned his poetic, elliptical, sometimes cryptic Art of War some twenty-three centuries ago. 

Master Sun put it simply: “Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril.” We failed on both counts. I know I sure did. As generals, we did not know our enemy — never pinned him down, never focused our efforts, and got all too good at making new opponents before we’d handled the old ones.

We then added to our troubles by misusing the US Armed Forces, which are designed, manned, and equipped for short, decisive, conventional conflict.

Instead, certain of our tremendously able, disciplined troops, buoyed by dazzling early victories, we backed into not one but two long, indecisive counterinsurgent struggles ill suited to the nature of our forces.

Time after time, despite the fact that I and my fellow generals saw it wasn’t working, we failed to reconsider our basic assumptions.

We failed to question our flawed understanding of our foe or ourselves. We simply asked for more time.

Given enough months, then years, then decades — always just a few more, please — we trusted that our great men and women would pull it out. In the end, all the courage and skill in the world could not overcome ignorance and arrogance. As a general, I got it wrong. And I did so in the company of my peers.

Excerpted from Why We Lost: A General's Inside Account of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars by Daniel Bolger. Excerpted with permission by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Copyright © 2014 by Daniel Bolger. All rights reserved.

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Putin has become shockingly effective at influencing European politics through a host of far-right parties. 

The following chart from the Center for Eurasian Strategic Intelligence (CESI) shows Russia's growing influence within six different European Union countries.

The parties, located in the UK, France, Germany, Greece, Bulgaria, and Hungary, are increasingly popular—and staunchly against giving more power to the EU. Each of the parties has also fostered a closer relationship with Russia, and has protested against sanctions on Moscow following its annexation of Ukraine. 

The six parties linked to Russia are the UK's UK Independence Party (UKIP), France's National Front, Germany's National Democratic Party, Hungary's Jobbik, Greece's Golden Dawn, and Bulgaria's Attack. 

Britain's UKIP party, which favors withdrawing from the EU and having stronger relations with Russia, received 29% of the votes in the most recent election. This was double what the party obtained in elections five years ago. 

Likewise, according to CESI, France's National Front won 25% of the votes in a national election. The party's head, Marine Le Pen, views Putin as a traditional ally and plans to form a coalition with other pro-Russian, far-right parties in the European Parliament. 

Jobbik (Hungary), the Golden Dawn (Greece), and Attack (Bulgaria) are also attracted to and possibly financed by Russia. All three parties oppose placing sanctions on Moscow for its annexation of Crimea, and have favorable views of Putin as a defender of traditional Christianity. 

Hungary, in particular, views Russia as an ally. Jobbik is the second-most-powerful political party in the country after the leading Fidesz party, which is also pro-Russian. Both parties oppose sanctions on Moscow and sought Russian help for building a nuclear power plant. 

The rise in European far-right parties is largely tied to Russian policies first developed during the Cold War. These policies, called "special war," attempt to conduct foreign policy through a combination of espionage and dark money rather than traditional warfare. Russia expert John Schindler explains that while the Soviet Union backed communist-leaning parties to influence politics, Russia is now financing far-right parties in an attempt to steer European politics. 

The preferred outcome for Russia would be the dissolution of the EU and the end of a counterweight to Russian power. 

"Resulting from the election of May 25, 20% of the European Parliament members are representatives of parties supporting dissolution of the EU," a CESI report states. "Their core is made of right-wing politicians."

SEE ALSO: Putin waged a 'special war' long before Crimea

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The Senate Intelligence Committee released a report on Tuesday that details harsh CIA interrogation techniques that were employed during counterterrorism efforts during the administration of President George W. Bush. 

You can read the full report here. This post will be continuously updated with details. 

The interrogation techniques described in the report were used under a program authorized by Bush in the wake of the September 11th attacks in 2001.

This program allowed terror suspects to be rendered to sites where they were detained and interrogated. 

Full details of the report are below. However, here are some of the more shocking findings:

• Among other things, the report found Bush was not briefed during the first four years of the program, while Vice President Dick Cheney was. A CIA email from 2003 stated "the White House is extremely concerned [Secretary of State Colin] Powell would blow his stack if he were to be briefed" about the details of the program. 
• The report also said the CIA paid two psychologists over $80 million to come up with torture methods. In the report's executive summary, the programs developed by the CIA and these two contractors were described as "brutal" and "in violation of U.S. law, treaty obligations, and our values." 
• Additionally, the report found the agency paid millions of dollars in cash to foreign governments to get them to host black sites where interrogations were held, two of which were not used over political concerns of the host countries. The report said one country paid by the CIA torture program was told the black site was serving a different purpose entirely.
• Torture programs described in the report included "rectal feeding," sleep deprivation, and mock executions. According to the report "rectal hydration" was used as a means of "behavior control." 
• At least one CIA officer played "Russian roulette" with a detainee. 
• CIA forced detainees to wear diapers "to cause humiliation" and "induce a sense of helplessness." Learned helplessness is used to coerce the prisoner's cooperation in terms of confessions, many of which later turn out to be false.
• The report repeatedly questioned the quality of the information obtained via enhanced interrogation techniques. If found at least 26 people were wrongly detained as part of the program. One detainee was recommended for release because he was given to the CIA under false pretenses. Instead, the CIA transferred the detainee to US custody for another 4 years.  The report also noted detainees who were tortured "provided fabricated information on critical intelligence issues." 
• According to the report, CIA officials, including the agency's former director, Michael Hayden, repeatedly lied about details of the program. The report describes instances of the CIA misleading the Department of Justice, a U.S. Senate committee, and the media about the usage and effectiveness of enhanced interrogation techniques. It also found the CIA attempted to manipulate press coverage of the program. Hayden did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider about the report. 

Read further details from the report below.

'Brutal' Interrogation Techniques: The tactics described in the report include "rectal rehydration" and CIA officers threatening to hurt, rape, and kill family members of detainees.

"The CIA led several detainees to believe they would never be allowed to leave CIA custody alive," the report’s executive summary noted. "One interrogator told another detainee that he would never go to court, because ‘we can never let the world know what I have done to you.’ CIA officers also threatened … to harm the children of a detainee, … sexually abuse the mother of a detainee, and … to "cut [a detainee's] mother's throat."

These methods were often found to have achieved little to no actionable intelligence. For example, in an email titled "So it begins," a medical officer wrote a detainee gave "NO useful information so far," but had vomited several times. 

“It's been 10 hours since he ate so this is surprising and disturbing. We plan to only feed Ensure for a while now,” the officer added.

President George W. Bush Was Shocked By The Program: According to the report, Bush was dismayed when some of the interrogation techniques were described to him in 2006.  

“CIA records state that when the president was briefed, he expressed discomfort with the ‘image of a detainee, chained to the ceiling, clothed in a diaper, and forced to go to the bathroom on himself,’” according to the report.

"Company Y:" The two CIA contractors, who helped develop the enhanced interrogation techniques starting in 2002, were indentified in the report by the pseudonyms Grayson Swigert and Hammond Dunbar. They subsequently formed a company referred to as Company Y in 2005. According to the report, Company Y "was granted a sole source contract to provide operational psychologists, debriefers, and security personnel at CIA detention sites."

The report found the agency paid Company Y  over $81 million from the company’s creation in 2005 to the termination of its contract in 2009. 

During the contract, Company Y was tasked with understanding the terrorist mindset. The company later "participated in the interrogations of detainees held in foreign government custody and served as intermediaries between entities of those governments and the CIA."

Over 20 People Were 'Wrongly Detained' By The CIA: The CIA "wrongly detained" at least 26 people, according to the report, which said it was actually using a "conservative" calculation of detainees the CIA itself acknowledged should not have been held. The report also accused the CIA of misrepresenting its number of detainees who were wrongly detained.

"While the CIA acknowledged to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) in February 2006 that it had wrongly detained five individuals throughout the course of its detention program, a review of CIA records indicates that at least 21 additional individuals, or a total of 26 of the 119 (22 percent) CIA detainees identified in this Study, did not meet the ... standard for detention," the report said.

Detainees Were Forced To Wear Diapers: The report said the CIA forced detainees to wear diapers and subsequently lied about this practice.

According to the report, the CIA misled the Justice Department about various methods it used to humiliate detainees. These tactics included "cold water immersion," forcing detainees to walk around naked in front of guards, "shackling" detainees' hands above their heads in a stress position for hours at a time, and making them wear diapers in order to make them feel helpless.

"The CIA further represented to the OLC that the use of diapers was ‘for sanitation and hygiene purposes,’ whereas CIA records indicate that in some cases, a central ‘purpose’ of diapers was ‘[t]o cause humiliation’ and ‘to induce a sense of helplessness,’" the report said.  

The CIA Misled The Public About The Efficacy Of Its Techniques:The agency claimed the intelligence obtained from enhanced interrogation techniques helped thwart a "Second Wave" series of terrorist attacks after September 11th. However, the Senate report described that claim aas "inaccurate."

"The CIA represented that its enhanced interrogation techniques were effective and necessary to produce critical, otherwise unavailable intelligence, which enabled the CIA to disrupt terrorist plots, capture terrorists, and save lives. Over a period of years, the CIA provided the 'discovery' and/or 'thwarting' of the Second Wave plotting and the 'discovery' of the al-Ghuraba group as evidence for the effectiveness of the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques. These representations were inaccurate," the report said.

The report also found the interrogation tactics actually led the CIA to receive incorrect information from detainees. 

"CIA detainees subjected to the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques provided significant fabricated information on both the Second Wave plotting and the al-Ghuraba group," the report said. 

The Death Of Gul Rahman: The report includes details of the events that led up to the death of "a suspected Islamic extremist" named Gul Rahman at a facility known as "Detention Site Cobalt" in November 2002. According to the report, Rahman was subjected to an interrogation that included “48 hours of sleep deprivation, auditory overload, total darkness, isolation, a cold shower, and rough treatment." The report said officials did not approve of the use of these techniques on Rahman in advance.

Dates in the report were redacted, but sometime the initial interrogation, it said a CIA officer ordered Rahman "be shackled to the wall of his cell in a position that required the detainee to rest on the bare concrete floor."

"Rahman was wearing only a sweatshirt, as [CIA OFFICER 1] had ordered that Rahman's clothing be removed when he had been judged to be uncooperative during an earlier interrogation,” the report said. “The next day, the guards found Gul Rahman's dead body."

Detainees Were Subjected To Mock Executions:The report noted "Detention Site Cobalt" was investigated after Rahman's death. Still, the report said officials were not informed about many of the interrogations techniques being used there  — including mock executions.

"Specifically, the interrogation techniques that went unreported in CIA cables included standing sleep deprivation in which a detainee's arms were shackled above his head, nudity, dietary manipulation, exposure to cold temperatures, cold showers, 'rough takedowns,' and, in at least two instances, the use of mock executions," the report said. 

CIA Worked To Shape Press Coverage Of The Torture Program:According to the report, the CIA provided unattributed background information to the press as part of a public relations effort in support of the torture program. Specifically, the report noted the CIA director "blessed" the leaking of classified information for the book "The CIA At War" by Ronald Kessler.

"When the journalists to whom the CIA had provided background information published classified information, the CIA did not, as a matter of policy, submit crimes reports," the report said. "For example, as described in internal emails, the CIA's [redacted] never opened an investigation related to Ronald Kessler's book The CIA at War, despite the inclusion of classified information, because 'the book contained no firsttime disclosures,' and because 'OPA provided assistance with the book.'"

The CIA Lied To The Department Of Justice: In addition to misling DOJ officials about the use of diapers at detention facilities, the report found the CIA "gave the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel inaccurate information about how it interrogated Abu Zubaydah and subsequent detainees."

Misrepresentations to the DOJ included the CIA giving inaccurate information about how detainees were waterboarded. The report said the CIA also said medical personnel intervened when detainees who were being sleep deprived "experienced hallucinations." According to the report, this was a lie.

"Multiple CIA detainees subjected to prolonged sleep deprivation experienced hallucinations, and CIA interrogation teams did not always discontinue sleep deprivation after the detainees had experienced hallucinations," the report said.

The report also noted Zubaydah had a gunshot wound when he was taken into custody. While the CIA told DOJ officials his "recovery from his wound would not be impeded by the use of the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques," the Senate committee subsequently found officials allowed his wound to become infected.

Waterboarding: The report accused the CIA of giving DOJ attorneys inaccurate information about how detainees were waterboarded and the effects of the practice.

According to the report, the CIA said detainees Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Muhammad didn’t experience physical pain from waterboarding as far as the agency could tell. Moreover, according to the CIA's statements to the DOJ, waterboarding was only meant to simulate drowning. The CIA also said physical reactions to waterboarding concluded when the experience was over. 

In reality, the report said, according to CIA records, Abu Zubaydah's waterboarding sessions "resulted in immediate fluid intake and involuntary leg, chest and arm spasms" and "hysterical pleas." A medical officer who oversaw the interrogation of KSM stated that the waterboard technique had evolved beyond the "sensation of drowning" to what he described as a "series of near drownings."

The report found physical reactions to waterboarding did not necessarily end when the application of water was discontinued, as both Zubaydah and Muhammad vomited after being subjected to the waterboard. Further, as previously described,during at least one waterboard session, Zubaydah "became completely unresponsive, with bubbles rising through his open, full mouth." He remained unresponsive after the waterboard was rotated upwards.

The Interrogation of Muhammad Rahim: Rahim was arrested in June 2007 on suspicion he had direct knowledge of the locations of Al Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and/or Ayman al-Zawahiri.

According to the report, Rahim was held for a week before being questioned as the CIA waited for an executive order interpreting the Geneva Conventions in a manner that would allow the use of enhanced interrogation techniques. The following techniques were approved: “sleep deprivation, dietary manipulation, facial grasp, facial slap, abdominal slap, and the attention grab.”

During his interrogation, the report said Rahim was shackled in a standing position, subjected to eight sleep deprivation schedules, and was limited a diet almost entirely composed of water and liquid Ensure meals. In a final round of questioning, Rahim was subjected to a prolonged sleep deprivation session that lasted for a total of 138.5 hours.

The report also noted the interrogation of "Mohammad Rahim resulted in no disseminated intelligence reports."

The CIA Lied To Journalists: The Senate report found CIA officials gave The New York Times information about the interrogation of detainee Abu Zubaydah that directly conflicted the agency's own records.

"David Johnston of the New York Times called the CIA's OPA with a proposed news story about the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah," the report said. "In an email with the subject line, ‘We Can't Let This Go Unanswered,’ the CIA's director of public affairs in OPA, Mark Mansfield, described Johnston's proposed narrative as ‘bullshit’ and biased toward the FBI, adding that ‘we need to push back."

According to the report, on September 10, 2006, an article was published in the Times by Johnston titled, 'At a Secret Interrogation, Dispute Flared Over Tactics.' The report noted Johnston's article included "'sharply contrasting accounts' of the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah." This included what the report described as "the frequent CIA representation that, after the use of ‘tougher tactics,’ Abu Zubaydah 'soon began to provide information on key Al Qaeda operators to help us find and capture those responsible for the 9/11 attacks.'"

"This characterization of Abu Zubaydah's interrogation is incongruent with CIA interrogation records," the report said. 

The CIA Did Not Meet With A Key Al Qaeda Source Until After 9/11: CIA officers were apparently aware of a source who had connections to chief September 11th architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed before the attacks happened, according to the report. 

This source eventually led the CIA to Mohammed, who was captured in 2003 and then held in Guantanamo Bay. However, the report states that the source, who is referred to only as Asset X, came to the CIA’s attention in the spring of 2001, but the agency didn’t meet with him or her until after the 9/11 attacks when it became apparent that Mohammed might be involved.

Bush stopped much of the program, which involved terrorism suspects being rendered to facilities where they were detained and interrogated, before he left office in 2009. President Barack Obama then banned so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" when he took office. Obama has acknowledged some of the tactics used as part of the program were torture. 

The Senate Intelligence Committee spent several years compiling this report.  Ahead of its release, officials stepped up security at US installations around the world due to concerns the violent and graphic details of the program could lead to violence. Due to these fears, the release of the report is controversial. 

Though the White House backed the release of the report, Secretary of State John Kerry apparently expressed some concern about security issues last week. A pair of Republican lawmakers, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) and Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho) also issued a joint statement on Monday criticizing the decision to release the report. 

"We are concerned that this release could endanger the lives of Americans overseas, jeopardize U.S. relations with foreign partners, potentially incite violence, create political problems for our allies, and be used as a recruitment tool for our enemies," Rubio and Risch said. 

Reporting by, Jeremy Bender, Colin Campbell, Pamela Engel, Erin Fuchs, Armin Rosen, and Hunter Walker

(This post was originally published at 10:50 a.m. and was continuously updated afterwards.)

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The director of the CIA has issued a statement in response to the Senate Intelligence Committee's release of the CIA Torture Report early Tuesday. 

In a statement posted on the CIA's website, Director John Brennan acknowledged that the CIA's Detention and Interrogation program "had shortcomings and that the Agency made mistakes."

Brennan admitted that the agency was unprepared and lacked the necessary competencies to tackle the "unprecedented, worldwide program of detaining and interrogating suspected al-Qa’ida and affiliated terrorists."

While Brennan insisted that the agency has learned from its mistakes, he also noted that the Intelligence Committee's characterization of the detention and interrogation program as essentially useless is incorrect.

"Our review indicates that interrogations of detainees on whom EITs were used did produce intelligence that helped thwart attack plans, capture terrorists, and save lives," Brennan wrote.

He also disagreed with the Committee's assertion that the CIA had intentionally misled congress on the effectiveness of the program.

If anything, Brennan said, the Committee had inadequately represented the CIA by painting an "incomplete and selective picture" of the program: "no interviews were conducted of any CIA officers involved in the program, which would have provided Members with valuable context and perspective surrounding these events," Brennan wrote.

Here is Brennan's full statement:

Over the past several decades, and especially since the terrible tragedy of 9/11, the CIA has been at the forefront of our Nation’s campaign against al-Qa’ida and other terrorist organizations worldwide. The women and men of the CIA have operated around the globe, 24-hours-a-day, working with their U.S. colleagues as well as with foreign partners to prevent terrorist attacks. As a result of these efforts, including the many sacrifices made by CIA officers and their families, countless lives have been saved and our Homeland is more secure.

As part of the CIA’s global effort to dismantle al-Qa’ida and to prevent future terrorist attacks, the Agency was directed by President Bush six days after 9/11 to carry out a program to detain terrorist suspects around the world. Certain detainees were subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs), which the Department of Justice determined at the time to be lawful and which were duly authorized by the Bush Administration. These techniques, which were last used by the CIA in December 2007, subsequently were prohibited by an Executive Order issued by President Obama when he took office in January 2009.

Today, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) released a redacted version of the Executive Summary, Findings, and Conclusions of its Study on CIA’s former detention and interrogation program, along with Minority Views and the Additional Views of a number of Committee members on the same subject. The CIA has also released its redacted June 2013 response to the Study, which is being posted on our website, www.cia.gov.

As noted in CIA’s response to the study, we acknowledge that the detention and interrogation program had shortcomings and that the Agency made mistakes. The most serious problems occurred early on and stemmed from the fact that the Agency was unprepared and lacked the core competencies required to carry out an unprecedented, worldwide program of detaining and interrogating suspected al-Qa’ida and affiliated terrorists. In carrying out that program, we did not always live up to the high standards that we set for ourselves and that the American people expect of us. As an Agency, we have learned from these mistakes, which is why my predecessors and I have implemented various remedial measures over the years to address institutional deficiencies.

Yet, despite common ground with some of the findings of the Committee’s Study, we part ways with the Committee on some key points. Our review indicates that interrogations of detainees on whom EITs were used did produce intelligence that helped thwart attack plans, capture terrorists, and save lives. The intelligence gained from the program was critical to our understanding of al-Qa’ida and continues to inform our counterterrorism efforts to this day.

We also disagree with the Study’s characterization of how CIA briefed the program to the Congress, various entities within the Executive Branch, and the public. While we made mistakes, the record does not support the Study’s inference that the Agency systematically and intentionally misled each of these audiences on the effectiveness of the program. Moreover, the process undertaken by the Committee when investigating the program provided an incomplete and selective picture of what occurred. As noted in the Minority views and in a number of additional views of Members, no interviews were conducted of any CIA officers involved in the program, which would have provided Members with valuable context and perspective surrounding these events.

Throughout its 67-year history, CIA has played a critical role keeping our Nation secure, and CIA officers are rightly proud and honored to be part of an organization that is indispensable to our national security. The numerous challenges on the world stage demand the full attention, focus, and capabilities of the women and men of the CIA so that our country can stay strong and our fellow Americans remain safe. To be successful, the CIA needs to work closely with its Congressional oversight committees as we confront these challenges.  With today’s release of Committee documents and the CIA response, we look forward to the way ahead.

Read the full CIA torture report here. 

SEE ALSO: The Senate Just Released The CIA Torture Report

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The CIA’s “enhanced interrogation techniques” weren’t all old intelligence-community techniques dusted off for the post-9/11 world.

Two contract psychologists developed some of them for the CIA in the summer of 2002, according to an unclassified report on the agency's Detention and Interrogation Program.

Grayson Swigert and Hammond Dunbar had past experience with the US Air Force Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) school, established at the end of the Korean War to minimize the risk of sensitive intelligence falling into enemy hands.

A manual used in training soldiers to withstand brutal interrogation techniques if captured also served as a foundation for the US' own interrogation methods.

The Senate report states:  “Neither psychologist had any experience as an interrogator, nor did either have specialized knowledge of al-Qa'ida, a background in counterterrorism, or any relevant cultural or linguistic expertise."

Still, the psychologists not only created interrogation techniques, but personally applied them and assessed their effectiveness. They also gauged whether certain detainees’ psychological state “allowed for the continued use” of the techniques. 

oh cool. the CIA paid 2 dudes over $80 million bucks to come up with ways to torture people http://t.co/4b01rONnG6pic.twitter.com/anGSlcLym5

— Matt Binder (@MattBinder) December 9, 2014

In 2005, the psychologists formed a company with the sole purpose of continuing this type of work with the CIA. “Shortly thereafter, the CIA outsourced virtually all aspects of the program,” and in 2007 it covered the company with a multi-year indemnification agreement, protecting the contract employees from legal liability for their work.

The report notes that contractors made up 85% of the workforce for detention and interrogation operations.

SEE ALSO: The CIA Torture Details Are Appalling

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Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) spoke about the newly released CIA Torture Report on the Senate floor Tuesday afternoon, decrying the use of harsh interrogation methods against detainees.

In light of reports about the CIA torturing detainees under a counterterrorism program authorized by President George W. Bush in the wake of the September 11th attacks in 2001, McCain noted that "even our enemies possess basic human rights."

"I have often said ... that this question isn’t about our enemies, it’s about us," McCain said. "It’s about who we were, who we are, and who we aspire to be."

"Our enemies act without conscience," he said. "We must not."

McCain continued: "We need not risk our national honor to prevail in this or any war."

Torture programs described in the report included "rectal feeding," sleep deprivation, and mock executions. The report also said the CIA engaged in efforts to manipulate media coverage of the torture program.

The CIA later misled the public about how effective the interrogation methods were.

"Torture produces [provided] more misleading information than actionable intelligence," McCain said.

He said the CIA interrogations "stained our national honor."

McCain was tortured during the Vietnam War while he was a prisoner of war. He has adamantly opposed the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" such as waterboarding against terrorism suspects.

SEE ALSO: The CIA Torture Details Are Appalling

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The CIA failed to give George W. Bush a full briefing of the agency's detention and interrogation program for the first four years of its existence, according to a report released by the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday. 

From 2002-2006, the CIA used interrogation techniques such as waterboarding, sleep deprivation and "wallings"(slamming detainees against a wall) to torture prisoners, but the president was not made aware of these methods until 2006, after three dozen detainees had already been subjected to them.

"According to CIA records, no CIA officer, up to and including CIA Directors George Tenet and Porter Goss, briefed the president on the specific CIA enhanced interrogation techniques before April 2006," the report states.

Once he was briefed, Bush reportedly “expressed discomfort" with some of the agency's interrogation techniques.

The CIA has denied that Bush had no knowledge of the agency's methods. A CIA statement released in 2013 claimed Bush had admitted in his autobiography to personally approving the interrogation techniques after discussing them with George Tenet.

Former CIA Acting General Counsel John Rizzo remembers it differently: "The one senior US Government national security official during this time—from August 2002 through 2003—who I did not believe was knowledgeable about the E.I.T.s was President Bush himself," Rizzo wrote in his 2014 memoir. "He was not present at any of the Principal Committee meetings."

But former Vice President Dick Cheney insisted on Monday that both he and the president had signed off on the program knowing full well what techniques the agency would employ.

"It was approved, including the techniques, by the National Security Council,” he told The New York Times. “It produced results and saved lives.”

The report concludes that “the C.I.A. repeatedly provided incomplete and inaccurate information” to the White House, keeping top officials such as Secretary of State Colin Powell and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in the dark until late 2003. 

A CIA email noted that the agency had tried to avoid a full briefing for fear that "Powell would blow his stack."

SEE ALSO: The Senate Just Released The CIA Torture Report

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CIA officials knew that the brutal interrogation techniques being used on detainees could open the agency up to criminal liability, according to a new "torture report" that was released on Tuesday.

In one instance, the CIA's associate general counsel warned that using torture methods on detainees who showed little resistance was risky.

"We open ourselves up to possible criminal liability if we misuse the interrogation techniques," he said. Many of the techniques detailed in the report are clearly torture.

The lawyer's warning was in reference to the interrogation of Janat Gul, who was thought to be working with Al Qaeda. CIA interrogators wanted headquarters to approve an extension on the torture techniques applied to Gul.

Here his full response:

The lawyer notes that cables from the CIA interrogators made clear that the interrogation techniques weren't working on Gul and that continuing them could be seen as excessive.

CIA headquarters approved the extension anyway. Nevertheless, the report says that CIA records indicate "that Gul was not subjected to sleep deprivation, or any other enhanced interrogation technique, following this approval."

SEE ALSO: The CIA Torture Details Are Appalling

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The CIA's chief of interrogations in January 2003 threatened to quit out of ethical considerations surrounding the agency's methods.

"This is a train [wreck] waiting to happen and I intend to get the hell off the train before it happens," he wrote in an email to colleagues, according to a scathing report released today on the agency's Detention and Interrogation Program.

The email came after he had received a proposed interrogation plan granting "the full range of enhanced exploitation and interrogation measures" for Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who allegedly masterminded the bombing of American warship USS Cole in 2000.

The chief interrogator's email stated he had notified the CIA's Counterterrorism Center of his impending resignation, and cited "serious reservation[s]" about "the current state of affairs."

The interrogation techniques described in the report were used under a program authorized by George W. Bush after attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Bush stopped much of the program, which involved terrorism suspects being rendered to facilities where they were detained and interrogated, before he left office in 2009.

During the course of al-Nashiri's debriefings, "while he was blindfolded, [an officer] placed a pistol near al- Nashiri's head and operated a cordless drill near al-Nashiri's body," the report states, nothing that al-Nashiri "did not provide any additional threat information during, or after, these interrogations."

At times he would be made to stand nude while handcuffed and shackled. One officer "placed al-Nashiri in a 'standing stress position' with 'his hands affixed over his head' for approximately two and a half days."

In 2005 the CIA destroyed videotapes of al-Nashiri's interrogation.

The interrogation of al-Nashiri was overseen by Hammond Dunbar, one of the two psychologists contracted by the CIA in 2002 to devise new interrogation techniques. 

The chief interrogator also drafted a cable for CIA headquarters to pass on his concerns to the relevant detention center, though the report adds that it "does not appear to have been disseminated to DETENTION SITE BLUE."

The cable noted the clear conflict of interest present in the work of Dunbar: "The medical officer is on hand to provide the same protection from physical actions that might harm the subject. Therefore, the medical officer and the psychologist should not serve as an interrogator, which is a conflict of responsibility."

Beginning in the summer of 2003, the CIA transferred al-Nashiri to five different detention facilities before transferring him to US military custody in 2006. At one point, he went on a short hunger strike "that resulted in the CIA force feeding him rectally."

Today al-Nashiri has been charged with war crimes and is awaiting trial at Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

SEE ALSO: The CIA Torture Details Are Appalling

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An appalling Senate report on George W. Bush-era interrogation techniques asserts that the CIA lied repeatedly about the harshness and effectiveness of its methods.

Those methods were used as part of a counterterrorism program that Bush put into place after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the US.

It turns out, however, that Bush didn't know the full details of the CIA's interrogation techniques — some of which were horrific — until 2006.

The report found the CIA also misled other government entities, including the Senate, a major news outlet, and the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel, which was supposed to ascertain the legality of the practices.

Here are key details about whom the CIA misled and when, from the Senate Intelligence Committee report:

President Bush Was Ill-Informed — And Even Lied To

Bush wasn't given a full briefing on the CIA's interrogation methods for the first four years of the program's existence, according to the report.

"According to CIA records, no CIA officer, up to and including CIA Directors George Tenet and Porter Goss, briefed the president on the specific CIA enhanced interrogation techniques before April 2006," the report says.

Moreover, the report finds that the CIA had incorrectly informed Bush during a daily briefing that detainee Abu Zubaydah had given interrogators helpful information after being subjected to "enhanced interrogation."

In fact, Zubaydah, who was detained in March 2002, didn't give interrogators more useful information after he was subjected to isolation and waterboarding.

The CIA Lied To The Department Of Justice

The CIA misled the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel about various methods it had used to humiliate detainees, and about how effective the tactics were.

These included immersing detainees in cold water, forcing detainees to walk around naked in front of guards, and even forcing them to wear diapers "to induce a sense of helplessness," according to the report.

The report also finds that the CIA "gave the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel inaccurate information about how it interrogated Abu Zubaydah and subsequent detainees." That misinformation included statements that waterboarding didn't hurt detainees and merely created a sensation of drowning.

In reality, the report says, according to CIA records, Abu Zubaydah's waterboarding sessions "resulted in immediate fluid intake and involuntary leg, chest and arm spasms" and "hysterical pleas." A medical officer who oversaw the interrogation of another detainee stated that the waterboard technique had evolved beyond the "sensation of drowning" to what he described as a "series of near drownings."

A CIA Director Misled The Senate

In April 2007, former CIA director Michael Hayden provided the Select Committee On Intelligence with inaccurate information about enhanced interrogation techniques and their effectiveness at a hearing, according to the report.

The report found that Hayden gave Senators inaccurate testimony about the interrogation process, threats against detainees' families, the punching and kicking of detainees, detainee hygiene, denial of medical care, dietary manipulation, the use of waterboarding and its effectiveness, and the injury and death of detainees. 

Hayden also told the Senate committee that he didn't believe CIA personnel had expressed reservations about the techniques that were used. In reality, one medical staff member said the methods made him "psychologically very uncomfortable" and several staffers were "profoundly affected" to the point of "choking up," according to the report.

The New York Times Was Lied To

The CIA worked vigorously to shape media coverage of its interrogation techniques, according to the report. The agency even gave The New York Times information about its interrogation of Abu Zubaydah that conflicted with the CIA's records, according to the report.

"David Johnston of the New York Times called the CIA's OPA with a proposed news story about the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah," the report says. "In an email with the subject line ‘We Can't Let This Go Unanswered,’ the CIA's director of public affairs in OPA, Mark Mansfield, described Johnston's proposed narrative as ‘bullshit’ and biased toward the FBI, adding that 'we need to push back.'"

Ultimately, The Times published a story commenting on "the frequent CIA representation that, after the use of ‘tougher tactics,’ Abu Zubaydah 'soon began to provide information on key Al Qaeda operators to help us find and capture those responsible for the 9/11 attacks.'"

"This characterization of Abu Zubaydah's interrogation is incongruent with CIA interrogation records," the report says.

SEE ALSO: The CIA Torture Details Are Appalling

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US and NATO combat missions ceremonially ended in Afghanistan on Dec. 8 after a grueling thirteen years of conflict. 

However, the end of combat missions does not mean that the Taliban and al Qaeda have been defeated, or that all of the US's objectives in Operation Enduring Freedom have been met. At least one high-ranking US official on the ground isn't finding much cause for celebration at the end of the 13-year-long effort.

"I don't know if I'm pessimistic or optimistic," Lt. Gen. Joseph Anderson, the departing US commander in Afghanistan, told The New York Times. "The fact that we are in less places, the fact that there are less of us as a coalition, is obviously concerning.”

The drawdown of military operations is not connected to political or security objectives like the defeat of the Taliban or the stabilization of the Afghan government. Instead, due to a faltering of political and public will, the US decided to cease operations and leave behind a coalition force of 13,000 troops. 

“Now everyone wants this to be in the rearview mirror, and of course we still don’t have the right guys in the right places and that just causes people to not know what to do,” Anderson said. 

The withdraw from Afghanistan comes at a time of greater instability in the country. The Taliban have mounted a steep escalation in attacks across the country in an attempt to take advantage of the US withdrawal.

Currently, the death toll the Taliban is inflicting upon the Afghan military may be unsustainable. There has been a 6.5% jump in casualties among Afghan forces since last year. 

Simultaneously, there is concern that ISIS is slowly expanding its reach from Syria and Iraq into Afghanistan. The group's influence is growing and could threaten to add another massive dose of uncertainty to an already tenuous situation.

Still, Anderson believes that the Afghan security forces will be able to rise to the challenge once US and NATO forces stand down. 

“The time has to come at some point, and they have always proven the more you push them and force them to be more responsible they end up coming through,” Anderson said about the Afghan military. “I believe they will be fine.”

SEE ALSO: A 3-star general explains why America lost the global War on Terror

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The White House, Congress, and the CIA Inspector General's office are just a few of the entities that were kept in the dark about the CIA's detainee and enhanced interrogation program, according to a Senate report released on Nov. 9. But considering the extensive and potentially explosive international component of the program, which began in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks and was fully discontinued after President Barack Obama took office in 2009, it's notable the State Department also was pretty much kept in the dark.

The purpose of the CIA's detainee program was to transfer terror suspects to places where they could be interrogated in absolute secrecy and outside of American legal jurisdiction. This allowed CIA officers to employ the enhanced interrogations techniques that critics call torture and are not permitted by US law. 

As the report explains, "The CIA did not inform two secretaries of state of locations of CIA detention facilities, despite the significant foreign policy implications related to the hosting of clandestine CIA detention sites and the fact that the political leaders of host countries were generally informed of their existence."

CIA officials instructed US ambassadors not to even discuss the program with their colleagues at State. The report said in two countries, ambassadors weren't even "informed of plans to establish a CIA detention site ... where they were serving." In two other countries, the report found the CIA told government officals to keep the local US ambassador out of the loop.

The secretaries of State and Defense weren't briefed on the program until September of 2003, partly out of White House concerns Colin Powell, then the Secretary of State, would "blow his stack if he were to be briefed on what's been going on," the report states. 

The CIA was operating in a way that may have impeded the smooth functioning of American diplomacy, concealing highly sensitive information about American activities abroad from the US foreign policy apparatus. Elsewhere, the report hints at the costs of this policy, suggesting the CIA was running its own back-channel in an attempt to keep the detainee program up and running — with very mixed results.

SEE ALSO: The Senate just released the CIA torture report

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According to Jack Daniel's Master Distiller Jeff Arnett, the US military buys the most of the brand's premium Single Barrel whiskey in the world.

The price tag for an entire barrel of this whiskey, approximately 250 bottles, swings from $9,000-$12,ooo since no two whiskey barrels have the same volume.

"Over the entire span of when the program has existed, the US military is the largest purchaser. It has been represented by base exchanges, individual units, as well as other on-base military entities like Officers’ Clubs," Arnett told Business Insider in an email.

Single Barrel whiskey was first sold in 1997 and was such a success that the distillery created the 'By The Barrel' program a year later, and ever since then the American military has been the top buyer.

During a tour of the distillery in Lynchburg, Tenn., our tour guide said it is believed that Navy SEAL Team 6 bought a barrel after the successful raid on Osama Bin Laden.

Although, we could not confirm, parent company Brown-Forman did share, "SEAL teams have purchased barrels before but we can't officially confirm Seal Team 6."

At the distillery, only 1 in 100 barrels makes the cut for the select 94-proof Single Barrel whiskey.

In an average 53-gallon barrel, there are approximately 250 bottles-worth of Jack Daniel's Single Barrel whiskey.

Here's how the 'by the barrel' program works.

A prospective whiskey barrel buyer is invited to tour the distillery in Lynchburg, Tennessee and meet with an expert Jack Daniel's Master Taster and sometimes the Master Distiller, Jeff Arnett. 

A buyer samples whiskey from 3 handpicked barrels along with the expert. After the tasting, a buyer selects a barrel and then later receives the empty barrel along with approximately 250 bottles. The bottles are individually numbered and personalized with a custom metal hang tag. The top of the barrel is also engraved before it is shipped to the buyer. 

And in the distillery's Single Barrel room, the buyer gets their name on a special plaque.

Those who buy more than one barrel are given a medallion on their tablet. MacDill Air Force Base's plaque reflects the purchase of 7 barrels of Jack Daniel's Single Barrel whiskey.

According to Arnett, Jack Daniel's derives all of its' color and most of the flavor from the handmade charred oak barrels.

Single Barrel whiskey sits on the highest level of the distillery's barrelhouses where temperatures can reach up to 120-degrees Fahrenheit, the fluctuations in temperature give this whiskey the most interaction with the barrel, and therefore a darker color and more robust flavor. 

The distillery's relationship with America's troops spans further with the creation of the Operation Ride Home program. Since 2011, approximately 1,200 service members have benefitted from free travel from their bases to homes in order to celebrate the holidays with their families.

"The men and women of our armed forces have been some of the best friends of Jack Daniel’s over the years, and Operation Ride Home is a continuation of our longstanding support of our nation’s military," Arnett told Business Insider.

SEE ALSO: Here's A Tour Of The Jack Daniels Distillery

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This article from Dec. 6, 1993, by Robert Fisk of The Independent, titled, "Anti-Soviet warrior puts his army on the road to peace," is stunning to consider 20 years later.

Osama bin Laden, fresh off the US-backed mujahadin's victory over Russia in 1989, flew his men, materials and money down to Sudan, ostensibly to start public works projects.

When asked if they were militant training camps, the "Saudi entrepreneur" and future leader of al Qaeda told Fisk: "I am a construction engineer and an agriculturalist. If I had training camps here in Sudan, I couldn't possibly do this job."

The piece is fascinating because it is a positive profile of a man who would become a global terrorist mastermind.

Some key lines:

• "OSAMA Bin Laden sat in his gold- fringed robe, guarded by the loyal Arab mujahedin ..."

• "With his high cheekbones, narrow eyes and long brown robe, Mr Bin Laden looks every inch the mountain warrior of mujahedin legend."

• "He is a shy man. ...  married - with four wives - but wary of the press."

• "Was it not a little bit anti-climactic for them, I asked, to fight the Russians and end up road-building in Sudan?" 

Bin Laden's work in Sudan purportedly involved overseeing a 500-mile highway from Khartoum to Port Sudan. 

Fisk reported that "Bin Laden has brought the very construction equipment that he used only five years ago to build the guerrilla trails of Afghanistan."

SEE ALSO: How Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette Describes The Bin Laden Raid

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John Kiriakou, the former CIA officersentenced to two and a half years in prison for leaking the name of a secret agent in charge of the CIA's Bush-era torture program, has written a letter detailing his initial time served at the Federal Correctional Institute in Loretto, Pennsylvania.

The letter reveals a very interesting perspective of a trained intelligence officer — Kiriakou worked for the CIA from 1990 to 2004 — co-mingling with a variety of common criminals.

Kiriakou, 47, who pleaded guilty in October and began his sentence in February, begins the letter by saying that his imprisonment is "punishment for blowing the whistle on the CIA's illegal torture program and for telling the public that torture was official U.S. government policy."

Here are some of the highlights from his picture of prison life:

• My cellmates include two Dominicans serving 24- and 20-year sentences for drugs; a Mexican serving 15 years for drugs, and a Puerto Rican serving 7 1/2 years for drug conspiracy; and the former auditor of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, who's doing a long sentence for corruption. They're all decent guys and we actually enjoy each other's company.
• Of the white prisoners, most are pedophiles with personal stories that would make you sick to your stomach. The rest of the white prisoners are here for drugs, except for a dozen or so who ran Ponzi schemes.
• Of the 1,369 prisoners, 40 have college degrees and six of us have master's degrees. The GED program is robust.
• I'm a janitor in the chapel. I make $5.25 a month.
  
• It turned out that I had to get a copy of my formal sentencing documents to prove that I wasn't a child molester. I did that, and was welcomed by the Aryans, who aren't really Aryans, but more accurately self-important hillbillies.
• [One female Corrections Officer] stopped me and said, "Are you the motherf----- whose name I can't pronounce?" I responded, "Ki-ri-AH-koo." She said, "how about if I just call you F---face?"

Check out the full letter >

Kiriakou goes on to explain why he gets along with each ethnic demographic in prison, saying: "So far, so good."

He also claims that Corrections Officers tried to get him into a violent confrontation with a Muslim inmate by telling him he was the uncle of the Times Square bombers, adding: "Instead, we're friendly, we exchange greetings in Arabic and English, and we chat."

In a 2007 interview with ABC, Kiriakou confirmed for the first time that Abu Zubaydah, a top Al Qaeda detainee, had been subjected to waterboarding.

In 2008 Kiriakou confirmed that name of the chief of the CIA's Rendition, Detention, Interrogation (RDI) teams toABC journalist Matthew Cole, and confirmed the role of another CIA employee in classified activities regarding "black sites."

"He gave names with that expectation that they be contacted and may choose to speak about it,"Kiriakou's lawyer, Robert Trout, said when his client was sentenced. "Naively, he didn't appreciate that he could lose control of it."

Kiriakou is the first and only person linked to the controversial "enhanced interrogation" program to be prosecuted.

SEE ALSO: The CIA's Torture Techniques Came Straight From This Military Manual

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TIME has announced its Person of the Year for 2014.

The magazine awarded the coveted title to people fighting the deadly Ebola virus.

From the cover story:

2014 is the year an outbreak turned into an epidemic, powered by the very progress that has paved roads and raised cities and lifted millions out of poverty. This time it reached crowded slums in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone; it traveled to Nigeria and Mali, to Spain, Germany, and the US. It struck doctors and nurses in unprecedented numbers, wiping out a public-health infrastructure that was weak in the first place. One August day in Liberia, six pregnant women lost their babies when hospitals couldn’t admit them for complications. Anyone willing to treat Ebola victims ran the risk of becoming one.

Doctors and healthcare workers have risked their lives to care for those stricken with a virus that has killed more than 6,000 people this year.

The outbreak has been confined mostly to three countries in West Africa — Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia — and healthcare workers have faced a stigma from others who fear them because they've been so close to the disease.

Ebola symptoms include fever, internal and external bleeding, and organ failure. It's also easily transmittable to those who don't take great precautions to avoid coming into contact with an infected person's bodily fluids.

Another look:

TIME interviewed Ebola fighters including several doctors, nurses, caregivers, scientists, ambulance drivers, leaders of organizations , and many others. Here's what a few of them had to say.

Centers for Disease Control Director Dr. Tom Frieden: “When the cases first hit, we sent in a team, and our team felt that they could control it. But there was some friction with [World Health Organization], which I had to get involved in. Essentially, people thought it was going to be controlled, and they didn’t want us there. So I had to tell WHO, ‘Let our team in, this is ridiculous.’ They wanted to do it themselves. There was resentment. They didn’t want to feel like they were dependent on the CDC. We left, and then Ebola came roaring back.”

Medecins Sans Frontieres President Joanne Liu: “I remember very well the WHO saying the outbreak was under control, and it took us awhile to convince them that it was not. The wake-up call came when volunteers from Samaritan’s Purse were infected in late July. Suddenly, Ebola wasn’t such a distant reality for the Western world.”

Nurse Amber Vinson: “It was hard to see a lot of the things they were saying in the news. It was emotionally taxing. The media was disappointing in some ways, because it promotes fear.”

Nurse Nina Pham: “I replay it over and over again in my head how I could have gotten infected. I did everything that was recommended. It was just a shock when my chief nursing officer and a CDC officer came to see me in their full protective equipment. I knew it was not good.”

Caregiver Salome Karwah: “I was in the treatment center for four weeks [and] four days. Really, what made me survive is the support from the nurses. The support from the psychosocial [team] also really helped me…. They were looking for survivors to come and work [at the MSF clinic]. I make it my duty to come. The more I interact with people, the more I will forget about my sad story. The more I share my story with people, the more I will get strong, strong, strong and stronger.”

Dr. Jerry Brown: “When it all started and we had a treatment unit set up, my wife did warn me not to enter the unit. So I didn’t tell her. I had been in the unit two weeks without her knowing…. A few days later she noticed changes in the color of my boxers from the chlorine solution used for disinfection when leaving the unit. She said, ‘Ah, what is this?’ I had no option but to confess. We talked about it for some time, and then she accepted it. What she said was, ‘I can’t stop you. I realize this is something you like, so I am not going to stop you. But just be careful.’”

Emory University Hospital’s Dr. Bruce Ribner: “Early on in the outbreak, I knew there were people in Africa who had Ebola, and I knew there were Americans there. I also knew that if they were transferred back to the US, there was a high likelihood that they would look at us. Our primary mission is to support CDC workers. But I was not thinking about a civilian until I got that phone call [about Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol].”

Dr. Kent Brantly: “Shortly after I arrived at Emory, [my wife] Amber called from a phone outside my room. I don’t remember that conversation, I was so delirious, but she said to me, “We watched you walk off that ambulance.” I said, ‘You were watching me?’ And she said, ‘Oh, Kent. The whole world was watching you.’”

Public-health educator Ella Watson-Stryker: “Guinea broke my heart. I was not prepared for the level of mortality. I wasn’t prepared to watch entire families die. I wasn’t prepared to watch entire villages die.”

Nurse Kaci Hickox: "I have witnessed the devastation Ebola causes and have personally experienced the stigma that fear of this disease brings. I do want to go back to West Africa, but for now, I’m taking things day by day."

Ambulance supervisor Foday Gallah: “I am going to get on that ambulance. I am going to every nook and cranny of the capital city, pick up whatsoever Ebola patient and take them to the treatment unit, and give them words of hope, of encouragement. And try to educate people about Ebola.”

NOW WATCH: This Drone Footage Of Desolate Detroit Looks Like Something From 'The Walking Dead'

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Gaza is one of the most populous cities between the Jordan River Valley and the Mediterranean sea, but there are no passable roads connecting it with Ashkelon, the tranquil Israeli beach town less than 10 miles up the coast, or El Arish, the nearest port city in the Egyptian Sinai.

Part of no recognized sovereign state, Gaza has been ruled by the militant Islamist group Hamas since its 2007 seizure from the Palestinian Authority. The city and surrounding coastal strip are home to 1.6 million people. It's all but off-limits to tourists; journalists only visit with the aid of an Israeli Government Press Office card and permission from a media office closely overseen by Hamas.

NGOs, foreign donors, and the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, which had a $238 million budget for Gaza in 2013, provide nearly all of the Strip's basic services, and more than half of the youth population is unemployed. There's no real postal delivery; such is Gaza's isolation that it is likely among the largest cities on earth without a Chinese-owned restaurant. The air is tangy with burning trash.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. The $35 million Israeli border terminal at Erez looks like an international airport, with a soaring wave-like dome reaching over an inviting glass facade. When it opened in 2005, Israel was about to withdraw its soldiers and civilian settlers from the Gaza Strip, formerly Egyptian-occupied land which it had held since the Six-Day War in 1967. Each day more than 15,000 Palestinians were expected to use the terminal — not an unreasonable assumption, given that more than 110,000 Palestinians from both Gaza and the West Bank crossed into Israel for work every day in the late 1990s.

But since the takeover by Hamas, a US and EU-listed terror organization, traffic has precipitously declined. Erez now sees only a few hundred users a day, mostly aid workers and journalists along with Palestinians with rare permission to enter Israel for passage to the West Bank or Jordan or to visit relatives in Israeli hospitals.

Israel has subjected Gaza to tight trade, border, and maritime restrictions out of concerns that Hamas could accumulate weapons, dual-use materials, and foreign currency. After all, the group is constitutionally committed to Israel's violent destruction and has used Gaza as a base for thousands of rocket and suicide attacks against Israeli civilians. Israel and Hamas have had three armed face-offs since 2008, including one this past summer in which around 2,200 Palestinians and 74 Israelis were killed (the UN initially claimed that around 70% percent of Palestinians killed were civilians, although a Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center analysis of 1,165 war fatalities found that 52% were militants).

The Erez terminal is flanked by a military base where the white marshmallow puff of a resting surveillance blimp pokes out over a concrete barrier. There’s a high wall that runs along the border, ahead of a second layer of wall that protects the nearby town of Netiv HaAsara, perched on a hilltop overlooking the Gazan borderlands, from rocket and mortar attacks.

When I crossed the border at 8:30 a.m. on a Monday morning in mid-November, the only other travelers in a gaping and empty departure hall were a trio of Swedish aid workers. There was only one desk open out of 15, and no one lined up behind me.

On one side of the border, marked by a sealed and probably blast-proof metal sliding door cut into a 15-foot-high-wall, is Israel, a place with smooth highways and traffic signals, plentiful western products, potable running water, 24-hour electricity, postal service, cinemas, rule of law, and regular garbage collection.

On the other is a place with frequent power outages and other signs of state collapse, where regional strife and internal disorder keep people cut off from the rest of the world and from each other as well.

Authority in Gaza, theoretically shared between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, remains a tenuous concept. Although the PA is withholding salaries from Hamas civil servants in the Strip and Hamas was weakened after the summer war, it's the Islamists who have the guns and rockets, control the borders and security checkpoints, run both the police and secret police, and collect taxes and protection money.

The road leading to Gaza City is scattered with destroyed and collapsed buildings, with nearby structures often left remarkably untouched. Much of the destruction comes from this summer, ruins of a war that Hamas unwisely started and waged with no resulting improvement in the lives of Gazans or relief from the Strip’s desperate isolation. Inside the city is more of the same.

"When TV or internet are down you feel lost in a big desert," one Gazan, a western-educated engineer, told me. "No one is around you, no one hears you. People don't even visit each other. You can’t invite friends to have a meal with you. It’s a boring life. We don’t have appointments to go to. Even sleeping you just keep thinking, thinking."

The Strip's other passenger border is the Rafah crossing with Egypt, which is located in the south-western corner of the Strip — as far as you can get from the Erez crossing, even though it's only a 90-minute drive away.

Rafah had been sealed to all freight and human traffic for more than 20 days when I visited. The only people on hand were a couple of bored uniformed Hamas men sitting on beat-up plastic chairs.

At an adjacent terminal processing freight traffic, a line of trucks carrying goods that had entered the Strip from Israel went through two sets of inspections: one from Palestinian Authority men and another round from Hamas. Hamas reportedly taxes every truck, even if it’s carrying goods for the UN. And I observed one truck traveling under escort from a UN-labeled vehicle, in case its payload (metal construction rods) was redirected to Hamas or some other armed group.

Nothing was coming over the Egyptian border that day. Since the overthrow of Egypt's Hamas-friendly Muslim Brotherhood government in the summer of 2013, former general-turned-president Abdul Fattah al-Sisi had turned the border into a closed military zone, greatly curtailing traffic in both directions and destroying thousands of smuggling tunnels linking Sinai to Gaza. An ongoing jihadist insurgency in the Egyptian Sinai has also sharpened Cairo's concerns over the militancy stewing in the neighboring Gaza Strip and given Sisi's anti-Islamist and anti-Hamas government even more of a reason to keep the frontier sealed.

Still, Rafah remains the average Gazan’s most practical gateway to the outside world — at least when it's open. And even then Palestinians can be delayed at the border for days before being issued a transit visa, sometimes to the point of missing their flights out of Egypt. When let through, they are typically escorted to the Cairo airport in armed convoys, riding on buses with surly Egyptian soldiers onboard.

“We’re treated like prisoners,” one Gazan who had been through the ordeal explained to me.

Israel may have bitter relations with Gaza, but only Egypt is willing to keep the Strip totally sealed off.

I asked the clerk at an empty café next to the entrance to Rafah crossing if his shop stocked any Egyptian-made items. He said that cigarettes were the only products coming through the few smuggling tunnels that still remained open. The rest of his products had arrived through Israel.

“This time is different,” he said of the border closure, which he estimated had caused an 80% plunge in business at his shop. “It’s longer than before. They’re clearing the border area and demolishing houses. We can hear the bombing and can see the smoke.” 

The Egyptians, he reckoned, would never fully tolerate Hamas’s control of the Rafah crossing.

“Inshallah, the Palestinian Authority will control the border,” he told me. “When the PA comes back to this place, things will be totally different. The Egyptians will let people leave.”

Back in Gaza City, Al Azhar University professor Mkhaimar Abusada couldn't even summon that little bit of optimism. 

"The Egyptian are saying the PA has to deploy within Rafah. But even if that will happen tomorrow, Egypt won’t open Rafah because they are facing a war within Sinai with extremists and radicals," he explained. "We are in the middle of a big mess here."

The border was reopened on Nov. 26 after a month-long closure— but only for Gazans returning to the Strip.

Until the early 2000s — prior to the beginning of a partly Hamas-led campaign of terrorist attacks inside of Israel, often planned from Gaza — it was possible for Gazans to fly out of the territory.

Between 1998 and 2001, they could leave Gaza on Palestinian Airlines, which operated out of Yasser Arafat International Airport, just a short drive up a now-sleepy and unpaved road from the Rafah crossing. Like the Erez terminal, it was a sign that both Israelis and Gazans once envisioned a much different future together.

Today, the terminals and outbuildings are dust-blown shells, pounded over the years by Israeli fighter jets attempting to collapse the entrances to smuggling tunnels leading between the former runway and the Egyptian Sinai, visible just a few hundred yards away.

The runway itself was destroyed in military operations in the early 2000s, when Israel moved against militants in the Strip in response to a wave of suicide bombings.

The shattered tarmac has since been picked clean for building materials, leaving a ghostly rectangular imprint etched into an expanse of dead grass.

My guide explained that the wreckage of what was the only airport ever to operate within Palestinian Authority-administered areas was now one of the more dangerous places in the Strip, with unexploded ordnance littering the site, as well as slags of concrete threatening to cascade from the upper stories.

High overhead was an unmanned surveillance balloon perched over rolling Israeli farmland, looking for smugglers or militants gathered at tunnel exits. Hamas was probably watching as well, for roughly similar reasons.

“You can’t see them,” he cautioned, “but they can see you.”

The gray streak of the Egyptian border zone, trafficked by the occasional tan-colored troop transport, ran along one side of the former airport. The Israel border is less than a mile away on the other side of the site. Despite their proximity, both neighboring countries feel impossibly distant and mirage-like.

The outlook for Gaza is bleak.

Hamas's summer hostilities failed to coerce Israel into lifting its border restrictions and likely convinced Egypt to tighten theirs. Palestinian political gridlock and Hamas's weapons arsenal leave little optimism that the root causes of Gaza's isolation — Hamas's empowerment, the Palestinian Authority's collapse, and the chaos and radicalism that each have given rise to — can be resolved peacefully either. And there's almost no possibility of a negotiated resolution to the larger Israeli-Palestinian conflict if Gaza remains outside the full control of the PA, which is the only entity that the peace process empowers to make a deal on the Palestinian people's behalf.

Meanwhile, more than 1.6 million people will be caught in a deadening limbo.

"Nobody's optimistic," a doctor, farmer, and former civil servant based in Gaza City told me. "There isn't any vision to break the siege. People are very tired and exhausted."

In the 1990s, when the PA was in decisive control of Gaza, "we never heard about any big attacks," he explained. "The borders were open. Seventy-thousand people worked in Israel. Farmers would export products abroad. All they were thinking was how to develop farms and factories and improve their lives."

A return to those conditions now seems inconceivable, but the doctor, a first-hand witness to the Strip's tumultuous recent history, didn't dare to think in such optimistic terms.

"The best solution is to take some of the pressure out of the way and make it easier for people," he said. "Or else there is no difference between death and life."

SEE ALSO: A look at Jerusalem like you've never seen it before

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A former interrogator-turned-creative writing professor opened up in a New York Times op-ed about his experience torturing detainees at Abu Ghraib in 2004. 

Eric Fair's memories of Abu Ghraib continue to haunt him nearly 13 years later. His guilt plagues him, but he does not seek forgiveness, and does not hope to forget. 

Fair refuses to allow the crimes he and others committed at the prison to fade into the past. "My transgressions will be forgotten. But only if I allow it."

At Lehigh University, Fair teaches a course called Writing War, which he says reminds him daily that he is not just a normal college professor. "I was an interrogator at Abu Ghraib. I tortured," he wrote.

Here are some of his most powerful quotes:

• "Abu Ghraib dominates every minute of every day for me. ... I still wear the black fleece jacket with the faded stain. I still smell the paint. I still hear the sounds. I still see the men we called detainees."
• "Abu Ghraib will fade. My transgressions will be forgotten. But only if I allow it."
• "My son could ride the bus to school and talk to his friends about what his father does for a living. I was someone to be proud of. But I’m not. I was an interrogator at Abu Ghraib. I tortured."
• "Many people were surprised by what it [the Senate torture report] contained: accounts of waterboardings far more frequent than what had previously been reported, weeklong sleep deprivation, a horrific and humiliating procedure called 'rectal rehydration.' I’m not surprised. I assure you there is more; much remains redacted."
• "One day, the students will come to know that this country isn’t always something to be proud of."

In 2004, photos were released of American soldiers torturing detainees at the Abu Ghraib military prison in Baghdad, which served as a detention center for captured Iraqis from 2003-2006.

Some photos show piles of naked bodies and prisoners being led on leashes and terrorized by dogs. Others reveal the battered faces and bloodied bodies of two dead Iraqis. [WARNING: GRAPHIC]

Eleven soldiers were eventually convicted of crimes relating to the scandal.

After the release of the CIA Torture Report by the Senate, The New York Times editorial board writes that "what happened [at CIA black sites] appears to have been worse than what took place at Abu Ghraib."

The report details the "enhanced interrogation techniques" used by CIA interrogators, including waterboarding, "rectal rehydration," sleep deprivation and mock executions. Some officers threatened to hurt, rape, and kill family members of detainees.

The CIA insists that these interrogations led to valuable information that eventually saved lives.

Read the full senate report here.

SEE ALSO: The CIA Torture Details Are Appalling

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