Senate panel votes to declassify CIA report

Dianne Feinstein heads to the closed-door meeting on Thursday. | AP Photo

The Senate Intelligence Committee voted on Thursday afternoon to declassify a 480-page summary of a report on the Central Intelligence Agency’s detention and interrogation programs.

Senate Intelligence Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said the documents show the CIA “made serious mistakes that haunt us to this day” in the agency’s efforts to track down those responsible for the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

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“The purpose of this review was to uncover the facts behind this secret program, and the results were shocking,” Feinstein said. “The report exposes brutality that stands in stark contrast to our values as a nation. It chronicles a stain on our history that must never again be allowed to happen.”

(PHOTOS: Dianne Feinstein’s career)

The committee agreed to declassify the report in a narrowly divided 11-3 vote, with Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) voting present. The decision marked the culmination of a five-year investigation by the Senate panel that studied how the CIA treated more than 100 detainees. It comes at a time of heightened tension between some lawmakers and the CIA after Feinstein recently accused the agency blocking the committee’s investigation.

Feinstein said that the documents contain details about CIA mismanagement of its Bush-era interrogation programs and exposes “major problems” regarding the intelligence community’s interactions with Congress and the White House.

“The release of this summary and conclusions in the near future shows that this nation admits its errors, as painful as they may be, and seeks to learn from them,” Feinstein said. “We are acknowledging those mistakes, and we have a continuing responsibility to make sure nothing like this ever occurs again.

The report now goes to the White House, where President Barack Obama must review it before its public release. The panel’s Republicans also plan to eventually release minority views on the report, which is expected to critique how the report was gathered.

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Senate panel votes to declassify CIA report

Maine"s senators will vote to declassify torture report summary. But don"t expect to read it soon

Sens. Angus King, the Maine independent who caucuses with the Democrats, and Susan Collins, a Republican who is as close to a maverick as the party includes these days, announced Wednesday that they will vote to declassify the “Finding & Conclusions” and the Executive Summary of the 6,300-page torture report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Both senators are members of the 15-member committee, which is scheduled to vote on declassification Thursday.

Good to hear. But even if the vote is favorable, as now seems probable, it might be months or longer before the public actually sees the report, which was completed 16 months ago. It has been the subject of review by the CIA and unproductive discussions between committee members and the agency, which ran the torture program whose methods became euphemized as “enhanced interrogation techniques.” The CIA would almost certainly seek a final review of the parts of the report the committee seeks to declassify.

Having the CIA handle such a review is especially troubling given the details of the report that have been leaked to the press. In addition to what was already known, what those details show is that the agency intentionally released false information to persuade people that torture works and that it employed methods of torture not previously confirmed. Nobody should be surprised by either of those revelations.

More on the report and possibility of declassification below the fold.

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Maine"s senators will vote to declassify torture report summary. But don"t expect to read it soon