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THE US SENATE will release a long-delayed report today into the CIA’s brutal interrogation of Al-Qaeda suspects after the 2001 attacks, as American embassies went on heightened alert amid fears of a backlash.
White House officials confirmed yesterday they expect the report to be published, even though US Secretary of State John Kerry warned late last week about the impact it could have around the world.
While heavily redacted, the report is expected to be a damning indictment of a secret program under the administration of former president George W Bush to question dozens of detainees.
Since coming to office in 2009, President Barack Obama has sought to distance the United States from past deeds and outlawed harsh interrogation techniques which he has denounced as “torture.”
“We have heard from the committee that they do intend to release the report tomorrow,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters.
“Prudent steps” had been taken to boost security at US facilities and diplomatic missions abroad in case the report triggers a wave of fury, he added.
The report is understood to cover the treatment of around 100 terror suspects rounded up by US operatives between 2001 and 2009, after the 11 September, 2001 attacks by Al-Qaeda which destroyed the World Trade Center in New York.
The suspects were subjected to waterboarding, stress positions and other harsh methods, in a series of interrogations either at CIA-run secret prisons or the Guantanamo Bay US military base in Cuba.
US media said the report is also expected to reveal that the CIA misled the White House about the details and success of the program.
“We tortured some folks,” Obama said in August, talking about the contents of the report.
The CIA’s defenders insist the methods saved American lives by helping to uncover Al-Qaeda’s network, while critics say they ran contrary to US values and hardened anti-American attitudes.
The 6,200-page report has been prepared by the US Senate intelligence committee. Its chairwoman, Senator Dianne Feinstein, sparred for months with the administration over proposed redactions.
Declassified
In April, the Senate committee voted overwhelmingly to release a reportedly severely critical 500-page executive summary and 20 conclusions of the secret document.
But first the lawmakers had to negotiate with the White House on redactions — something Feinstein, who called the report’s findings “shocking,” pledged to do.
The undertaking caused deep friction between the intelligence community and the lawmakers and Senate staffers.
“We’ve declassified as much of that report as we can,” said Earnest.
“The president believes that on principle it’s important to release that report so that people around the world and people here at home understand exactly what transpired,” he added.
Feinstein told reporters Monday she wants Americans reading the report to see that “when we make mistakes we admit them… and we move on.”
The State Department has put its missions around the world on watch, and asked them to review security arrangements ahead of the report’s release.
Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill said she supported the release of the report.
“It exposes what the world already knows and that is that the United States engaged in torture. But my feeling about this is that this is a gut check moment for our democracy,” she told CBS.
“This report would never happen in North Korea, or China or Russia,” she argued. “If it doesn’t come out, then we all need to get comfortable with the fact that in America, the CIA has no oversight.”
But Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee Mike Rogers said Sunday: “I think this is a terrible idea.”
“Our foreign partners are telling us this will cause violence and deaths.”
And former Bush vice president Dick Cheney staunchly defended the interrogation program, telling the New York Times it was “absolutely, totally justified.”
He denied the CIA withheld any information, and emphasised the program had been vetted by the Justice Department.
“As far as I’m concerned, they ought to be decorated, not criticised,” he said of the CIA interrogators.
“When we had that program in place, we kept the country safe from any more mass casualty attacks, which was our objective,” he said.
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki confirmed Kerry had spoken with Feinstein last week to highlight ongoing efforts against the Islamic State group as well as the safety of American hostages around the world.
Another State Department official, who asked not to be named, said “you could infer that he talked about delaying the release.”
- © AFP 2014.
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The American government aren’t stupid they know full well that this is going to incite hate and attacks which will give them reason to continue this war on terror which has become a vicious circle. Many of these suspects have never faced trial or were properly charged it’s a complete farce. These men were taken from their family’s, beaten , tortured and scared for life. The only terrorist attack that I see here was the one perpetrated on these innocent men by the American government.
I wonder how many 9/11′s they stopped with this. Not condoning torture but you have to way up how many lives may have been saved.
It’s more a case of how many more 9/11′s have they created with their torture policy of “suspects”. If they were tried and convicted criminals then they might have some justification but the widespread use of torture on anybody that they detain has created uncountable new martyrs for Islam.
how many 9/11 have the U.S. committed in the middle east with their state sponsored terrorism
Re Michael
Well since the CIA had many of the 9/11 ‘suspects’ under surveillance, were providing them with funds and had all their communications tapped and fully intercepted I’m not sure what you are talking about. Them again from your comment, I’m pretty sure you don’t know what your talking about either.
Michael, just google tower 7, or in fact look at the records of the stock market from September 10th and you won’t be long finding out who really benefitted from 9-11.
911 was an inside job and the cover up is being exposed piece by piece. Explain how wtc7 came down..
The controlled mainstream media is a huge reason that the truth about 9/11 has been kept from the public. The false flag op that was 9/11 needs to be exposed and a proper investigation conducted, the people that died that day and their family’s deserve it.
See, there you go spoiling an original argument with your whack job conspiracies. Scary thing is is that someday there really might be a government engineered conspiracy but people will be so tired of hearing about inside jobs and black flag ops that no one will listen. You are actually doing a disservice to your cause by crying wolf constantly.
You should find what you need to know about building 7 here:
http://www.debunking911.com/pull.htm
(You’ll also find your other 9/11 conspiracy theories explained in a rational evidence-based way here).
How come no one who was involved in theses conspiracy theories have come out and spoke about them?in all these false flag black flag ops or whatever you guys call them why had no one broke silence
@ Michael McTague
In effect you are saying that the ends justify the means. That presents a moral dilemma. If you, or one of you family, an innocent, were caught up in a sweep and thrown into a concentration camp and tortured, what would be you attitude then? Would you still hold to your opinion?
@Glen
(Yawn)
The worrying aspect about this report is it only covers the CIA which is tiny compared to the NSA and it only covers narrow aspects of the CIA clandestine activities. This 100 figure of tortured is not even the top of the top of the iceberg. We know US intelligence services rounded up a random 1,000 Muslims in the US immediately after 9/11 hoping to find something. They beat the crap out of the 1,000 innocents and held them for nearly 80 days.
We know the US practices torture(this report), we know the US is the biggest threat to world peace being a war mongering country(read William Blum), we know the US operates the world’s largest terrorist program(UN commissioners describing drone attacks as illegal and the use of only phone metadata as ludicrous), we know the US is an oligarchy as a major recent Harvard study has shown, we know habeus corpus has been stripped from US citizens with provisions signed into the NDAA, yet despite all this the media will still talk about the moral obligation of the West or the US to fight these terrorists or to stop that country from torturing, it’s absolutely insane.
The NSA do a far less exotic job then the cia. They don’t have spys or anything like that. They’re mostly just code breakers, wire tappers and hackers.
It’s the DIA who are the big guys in the intel community in the US. Five times the size of the CIA hardly spoken about in media and running groups like 97 Echo ect..
No sympathy for any of them, the Muslim religion is right now the biggest threat in the world to us all.
@O’Duigain
Do not blame ordinary Muslims for the crimes of a minority of their co-religionists. Many Americans and Europeans have been killed in attacks carried out by Sunni and Shia extremists but most of the victims of such attacks are themselves Muslims. Ask Malala Yousufzai.
No the entire religion
Obviously the law does not,apply to everyone,in that country,if it does,then why are the perpetrators,not in jail.
To help stop murder, genocide, torture, and human rights abuses America engaged in murder, genocide, torture, and human rights abuses to show everyone that is was wrong.
It’s the same way the government there murders people to show people how murdering people is wrong.
More of a ‘do as we say, not as we do’ sort of thing.
Oh yes this is going to make Muslim extremists hate America.
@Bruce
Islamic extremists have always hated America. If they launch attacks on US embassies, the Marines will wipe the floor with them.
Did you not get the sarcasm in my comment
@Bruce
I do now. Apologies.
I’m just putting this link here for all the thumbs down people. . Knowledge is power.. WELCOME TO TRUTH | Full Documentary 2014: http://youtu.be/oAaQTnCNo70
Wallace and grommit will be on there way to Shannon airport to check more planes after this report.
Carrie Mathison must be very peeved about the Senate’s report.
“Not condoning torture but” the words after “but” generally contradict the words before it.? Example I am not a racist but.
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