Controversial CIA Torture Report Released

By Sky News US Team

A report on the CIA's harsh interrogation techniques after the September 11 terror attacks has been released, as security at US embassies and military units was stepped up.

The Senate Intelligence Committee published a 480-page executive summary of the 6,200-page report compiled by Democrats on the panel.

The report is the first public accounting of the agency's use of what critics call torture on al Qaeda detainees held at "black" sites in Europe and Asia or at Guantanamo Bay.

"There are some indications that the release of the report could lead to a greater risk that is posed to US facilities and individuals all around the world," said White House spokesman Josh Earnest.

US officials who have read the report say it includes disturbing new details about the CIA's use of sleep deprivation, confinement in small spaces, humiliation and the simulated drowning process known as waterboarding.

The report is also believed to contain graphic details about sexual threats.

In one case, the report documents how at least one detainee was sexually threatened with a broomstick, the Reuters news agency reported.

The document also asserts that the CIA lied about the covert programme to officials at the White House, the Justice Department and congressional oversight committees.

The report, which took years to produce, charts the history of the CIA's "Rendition, Detention and Interrogation" programme, which then-president George W Bush authorised in the aftermath of the 2001 attacks

The committee's bottom-line conclusion is that harsh interrogations did not produce a single critical intelligence nugget that could not have been obtained by non-coercive means.

That conclusion is strongly disputed by many intelligence and counterterrorism officials, who say that there is no question such interrogations led to major breakthroughs.

Mr Bush ended many aspects of the programme before leaving office following the 2008 election.

President Barack Obama has sought to distance the United States from harsh interrogation methods carried out in the past, which he denounced as "torture".

Mr Earnest said that regardless of whether the US gleaned important intelligence through the interrogations, "the President believes that the use of those tactics was unwarranted, that they were inconsistent with our values and did not make us safer".

Mr Bush told CNN at the weekend that CIA officers are "patriots" and that any report that seeks to diminish their contribution to the country is "off-base".

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