Senator Diane Feinstein led the way in the Senate Intelligence Committee and helped push through a vote to declassify parts of the Senate report on the CIA detention and interrogation program. Now it's up to the White House to do its part:
'Shocking' report on CIA interrogation closer to public release
The Senate Intelligence Committee voted Thursday for the public release of key parts of a report on the notorious CIA detention and interrogation program launched after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
A final decision on declassifying the information now rests with the White House, and it was unclear how long such a process would take.
Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California said the panel she leads voted 11-3 in a closed-door session to declassify the 480-page executive summary and 20 findings and conclusions of the five-year study.Feinstein called the report's findings "shocking," saying it "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," she said. "This is not what Americans do."
The committee's ranking Republican, Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, said he voted to declassify the information in order to move past the politically volatile issue from the GOP administration of former President George W. Bush.
"This is a chapter in our past that should have already been closed," he said.
As usual there are always defenders of torture that reside in our Congress. And they are usually Republicans.
Two other Republicans on the panel -- Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Jim Risch of Idaho -- said they voted against declassification of the report they labeled as "one-sided" and "partisan," adding the public release of the information would fail to end the debate.
DiFi is no liberal icon, Senator McRubio and Americans have a right to know what horrors our country has inflicted upon the rest of the world.
Feinstein accused the CIA of snooping on computers used by the Senate staffers, which were in a CIA facility designated for the committee's use.
Her statement Thursday detailed harsh criticism of the CIA in the report, which said "points to major problems with CIA's management of this program and its interactions with the White House, other parts of the executive branch and Congress."
"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. "It is now abundantly clear that, in an effort to prevent further terrorist attacks after 9/11 and bring those responsible to justice, the CIA made serious mistakes that haunt us to this day."
In a Senate floor speech last month, Feinstein outlined part of the reason to make the report public.
FBI looks into dispute between CIA, Senate"The interrogations and the conditions of confinement at the CIA detention sites were far different and far more harsh than the way the CIA had described them to us," she said then.
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