Senate to Investigate ‘Zero Dark Thirty’s’ CIA Contacts

Three senior senators are investigating whether CIA personnel deliberately misled “Zero Dark Thirty” filmmakers to believe that acts of torture yielded key information about where Osama Bin Laden was hiding, which the Sony Pictures film wrongly suggests.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. John McCain and Sen. Carl Levin sent two letters to CIA chief Michael Morell requesting information about what CIA told the filmmakers and to clarify a statement Morell made about the movie and its portrayal of torture.

Morell said in a statement that some information came from detainees subjected to “enhanced techniques.”

“Some [information] came from detainees subjected to enhanced techniques, but there were many other sources as well. And, importantly, whether enhanced interrogation techniques were the only timely and effective way to obtain information from those detainees, as the film suggests, is a matter of debate that cannot and never will be definitively resolved.”

“Enhanced techniques” was the term the Bush administration used for waterboarding, sleep deprivation, stress positions and other procedures–basically, torture methods used on suspected terrorists.

Preston Golson, a CIA spokesman, said the CIA would cooperate with the senator’s requests.

“Zero Dark Thirty” is a film chronicling the hunt for al-Qaeda terrorist leader Osama bin Laden after the September 2001 attacks.