Senate Report Blasts CIA’s Handling of Interrogation Program

A new Senate Intelligence Committee report is lambasting the CIA for misleading Americans about its controversial Bush-era interrogation program, the Washington Post reports.

Citing unnamed officials who have reviewed the still undisclosed document, the Post reports that it alleges the CIA claimed it gained actionable intelligence after using its harshest interrogation techniques, when in fact that information was gained before agents resorted to such measures. CIA officials also tried to conceal the extremity of the agency’s most brutal interrogation techniques, the report says, practices many have decried as torture.

Another section of the report based on what the Post calls “millions of records” says information that led to the 2011 death of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had “little, if anything” to do with “enhanced interrogation techniques,” as government officials have called the agency’s most controversial methods.

The committee will ask the White House on Thursday to make public a part of the still classified report. Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein, a Democratic California Senator, said Monday that she believes the Obama Administration will declassify the report so all Americans can read her committee’s work.

“I believe they will, hopefully quickly,” Feinstein said, according to Politico.

Feinstein accused the CIA earlier in March of improperly searching a Senate computer set up for committee staffers to conduct their investigation.

[Washington Post]