the product of a half-century of history

From: Author explores CIA connections to torture tactics

...By 1999, McCoy was thoroughly repulsed by his subject. "I put it aside until CBS broadcast those photos from Abu Ghraib in 2004," he says.

Looking at the most famous of the photos, the hooded Iraqi on a box with wires attached to his extended arms, he could see clearly signs of the CIA's signature Cold War torture techniques, including sensory deprivation and self-inflicted pain.

"That photo indicated that this abuse was not the work of 'recycled hillbillies' on the 'night shift' at Abu Ghraib. It was instead the product of a half-century of history that reached back to the darkest recesses of the Cold War and decisions that extended all the way to the highest levels in Washington," he says...