READ THE REPORT: Committee Study of CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program
WASHINGTON — A day after the Senate made public its report on CIA abuses following the 9/11 attacks, Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado took to the floor of the Senate to disclose more details about the agency’s treatment of terrorism suspects.
He also blasted President Barack Obama on Wednesday for breaking his word to shine light on what Udall has dubbed a “dark chapter of our history.”
“The White House has not led on this issue in the manner we expected,” the Democratic lawmaker said. “This administration, like so many before it, has released information only when forced to.”
The central plank of Udall’s nearly 50-minute address was the so-called Panetta Review, an internal CIA examination of how U.S. agents and allies tortured prisoners as they spanned the globe trying to hunt down the perpetrators of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The document never has been made public, although Udall last year revealed its existence, saying at the time that many of its findings corroborate the conclusions reached by the Senate’s own investigation into CIA abuses.
Building on that revelation, Udall spoke at length in a somber address about its findings and called on the administration to release the entire Panetta Review, named for former CIA Director Leon Panetta.
“That’s why I’m here today, to disclose some of its key findings and conclusions on the Senate floor for the public record, which fly directly in the face of claims made by senior CIA officials both past and present,” said Udall, who specifically cited statements made by current CIA Director John Brennan.
He said the Panetta Review confirms the CIA “repeatedly provided inaccurate information to the Congress, the president and the public on the efficacy of its coercive techniques.
“The Brennan response, in contrast, continues to insist the CIA’s interrogations produced unique intelligence that saved lives.”
A Brennan statement released Tuesday by the CIA says as much.
“Interrogations of detainees on whom (enhanced interrogation techniques) were used did produce intelligence that helped thwart attack plans, capture terrorists and save lives,” Brennan said. “The intelligence gained from the program was critical to our understanding of al-Qaeda and continues to inform our counterterrorism efforts to this day.”
But Udall said there was almost no standard in how the CIA treated its detainees. He said there were cases where detainees provided information before being tortured and that the CIA “often tortured detainees before trying any other approach.”
“The Panetta Review further identifies cases in which the CIA used coercive techniques when it had no basis for determining whether the detainee had critical intelligence at all,” he said. “In other words, CIA personnel tortured detainees to confirm they didn’t have intelligence. Not because they thought they did.”
As part of his speech, Udall renewed his calls for Brennan’s resignation and said there should be a “purge” of culpable officials in the administration.
But he saved his toughest rhetoric for the president.
“To date there has been no accountability,” said Udall, who took direct aim at how Obama characterized CIA behavior this summer at a news conference.
“Torture just didn’t happen after all. Contrary to the president’s recent statement, we didn’t ‘torture some folks.’ Real actual people engaged in torture,” he said. “Some of these people are still employed by the CIA and U.S. government.”
About the time Udall was delivering his speech, White House spokesman Josh Earnest was addressing reporters at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. Asked for a response to the Colorado lawmaker, Earnest defended Obama’s record. “I think the president is pretty proud, as he should be, of his efforts to try to rectify many of the shortcomings that were included in this report,” he said.
Mark K. Matthews: mmatthews@ denverpost.com