CIA torture report: Techniques ineffective and brutal

Ineffective and brutal, those were the findings of the Senate Intelligence Committee into the CIA’s detention and interrogation programme following the 9/11 attacks.

US facilities around the world were put on high alert in expectation of the fallout, the chair of the committee Dianne Feinstein defended the decision to release the long-delayed report.

“History will judge us by our commitment to a just society governed by law, and the willingness to face an ugly truth and say ‘never again’. There may never be the ‘right time’ to release this report. The instability we see today will not be resolved in months or years. But this report is too important to shelve indefinitely.”

The report states that the CIA routinely misled the White House and Congress over techniques used on terrorism suspects and that no life-saving information came of it.

President Bush ended many of the programme’s actions before leaving office.Now some are calling for officials during his time in office to face criminal charges. Euronews correspondent Stefan Grobe in Washington says:

“President Bush was apparently told for the first time about the details of the techniques in 2006. Over the last weekend, he defended the program and took responsibility for it, Today, he might want to think again.”