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Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Senate panel releases scathing report on CIA interrogations amid security warnings

Senate panel releases scathing report on CIA interrogations amid security warnings

FoxNews.com
Published December 9, 2014

A Democrat-led Senate panel released a scathing report Tuesday on CIA interrogation practices amid warnings from lawmakers that the findings could "endanger the lives of Americans" -- a concern the Obama administration apparently shared as it put more than 6,000 Marines on high alert. 

The report, from the Senate intelligence committee, claimed the interrogation techniques used were "brutal and far worse" than the CIA represented to lawmakers. Further, the report claimed the tactics were not effective and the spy agency gave "inaccurate" information about it to Congress and the White House. The report called CIA management of the program "deeply flawed" -- though agency officials have staunchly defended the program and credited it with helping track down Usama bin Laden and other terror leaders. 

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the head of the intelligence panel who ordered the release of the report, alleged on the Senate floor on Tuesday that the CIA techniques in some cases amounted to "torture." 

"History will judge us by our commitment to a just society governed by law and the willingness to face an ugly truth and say 'never again'," she said on the floor. "There may never be the right time to release this report. ... But this report is too important to shelve indefinitely." 

The White House and President Obama backed the decision to release the report, despite warnings from lawmakers and some inside the administration that it could lead to a backlash against Americans. More than 6,000 U.S. Marines overseas have been put on "high alert" over the report's release, Fox News is told. 

Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Jim Risch, R-Idaho, called the move a "partisan effort" by Democrats on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. They said the report is not "serious or constructive" and "could endanger the lives of Americans overseas." 

Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., the top Republican on the intelligence committee, slammed the release in a joint statement on Tuesday. 

"As we have both stated before, we are opposed to this study and believe it will present serious consequences for U.S. national security," they said. "Regardless of what one's opinions may be on these issues, the study by Senate Democrats is an ideologically motivated and distorted recounting of historical events. The fact that the CIA's Detention and Interrogation program developed significant intelligence that helped us identify and capture important al-Qa'ida terrorists, disrupt their ongoing plotting, and take down Usama Bin Ladin is incontrovertible. Claims included in this report that assert the contrary are simply wrong."

The roughly 500-page report, a summary of a still-classified 6,000 page study, amounts to the fullest public accounting from Congress -- at least from Democrats -- of the CIA's alleged use of torture on suspected Al Qaeda detainees held in secret facilities in Europe and Asia in the years after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. 

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